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AIDS TO REFLECTION, 



BY SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE, 



WITH A 



PRELIMINARY ESSAY, 



BY JAMES MARSH, D. D 



FIIOM THE FOURTH LONDON EDITION, WITH THE AUTHOR'S 
LAST CORRECTIONS, 



EDITED BY 



HENRY NELSON COLERIDGE, ESQ., M. A. 



BURLINGTON: 
< 11 A V N < E Y G O O D R I t II 

1840. 



AC* 



*V 



Entered according to act of Congress, in tlie year 1840, by 
Chauncey Goodrich, 
in the Clerk's office of the District Court, for the District of Vermont. 



4 






CONTENTS. 



Pago. 
Editor's Advertisement . . 7 

Preliminary Essay by James Marsh, D. D. . . . ■ . 9 

Author's Address to the Reader 50 

Author's Preface 61 

Introductory Aphorisms ......... 67 

On Sensibility - 88 

Prudential Aphorisms ......... 93 

Moral and Religious Aphorisms ....... 101 

Elements of Religious Philosophy ....... 153 

Aphorisms on Spiritual Religion ....... 161 

Aphorisms on that which is indeed Spiritual Religion . . . 167 

On the difference in kind of Reason and the Understanding . . 211 

On Instinct in connection with the Understanding .... 232 

On Original Sin 242 

On Redemption 297 

On Baptism 317 

Conclusion ••-........ 333 

Appendix 353 

Index 355 



THIS MAKES, THAT WHATSOEVER HERE BEFALLS, 
YOU IN THE REGION OF YOURSELF REMAIN 
NEIGHB'RING ON HEAVEN ) AND THAT NO FOREIGN LAND. 

DANIEL. 



ADVERTISEMENT. 

The edition of the Aids to Reflection published here in 
1829, experienced a more favorable reception with the pub- 
lic than could have been anticipated, and has been for some 
time exhausted. — The demand for the work, indeed, as well 
as for the other productions of its author, has been steadily 
increasing, and another edition would have been issued soon- 
er, but for causes, which the editor could not control. — 
Among these an expectation of the author's latest additions 
and corrections was not the least These are at length re- 
ceived in the fourth London edition edited by H. N. Cole- 
ridge Esq., and though not very numerous or important are 
yet the last. The volume herewith offered to the American 
public is simply a reprint of that edition, containing, in addi- 
tion to the work of the author, the Preliminary Essay pub- 
lished here in 1829, and some few notes by the editor. — 
The appendix and notes added to the former American edi- 
tion, consisting chiefly of selections from other works of the 
author then but little known here, are now less needed and 
are not therefore added to this. It is to be hoped, indeed, 
from the increasing demand for them, that we shall soon be 
furnished with a uniform edition of all the author's prose wri- 
tings, when he will be found, by all who wish to understand 
his views, his own best commentator. 

Of the character of his writings, and their influence upon 
the cause of truth in philosophy and religion, my views have 
been strongly expressed in the preliminary essay here repub- 
lished, nor have I found cause to think of them with less in- 
terest in the more thorough knowledge, which ten years has 
enabled me to acquire, of his principles and their application. 
On the contrary, while a more extended acquaintance with 
the speculative and practical works of the most celebrated 
German writers has taught me to regard them very different- 
ly from those who sneer at their mysticism, and condemn, 



D ADVERTISEMENT. 

without pretending, or using the means, to understand them, 
I still reverence Coleridge, as combining with their profound 
learning and logic, sound English sense, that correctness in 
the search after truth, and that true humility, which are so 
especially necessary in reference to the great subjects treated 
of in the work before us. 

Again, in their application to the passing state and con- 
flict of opinions in philosophy and theology among ourselves, 
one who has qualified himself to observe, will find continually 
new occasion to admire the soundness of his distinctions, and 
to appreciate their vast practical importance. He will see 
more and more clearly, that the lines of distinction, which he 
draws between the understanding, and the reason, between 
the natural and the spiritual, the individual and the universal, 
and the relation of the personal will in man to Him, in whom 
" we live and move and have our being," as exhibited by him 
in the " Aids " and elsewhere, are such as cannot be disre- 
garded without danger of great practical error. He will ap- 
preciate them more and more, as consistent with, and guid- 
ing to, the reception of the whole truth as it is in Christ ; — 
guarding him, on the one hand, against the self-deceiving 
humility of those, who disparage the authority of reason and 
conscience, while they " lean to their own understanding," 
and " trust in their own devices ;" and, on the other, against 
that pride, which discourses of the " higher nature of man," 
and arrogates to every man, as inherent in that nature, the 
power of spiritual life, which we can receive only " through 
the redemption that is in Christ Jesus." Thus, as the au- 
thor showed himself both living and dying to be eminently, 
in his speculative views a philosopher, and in spirit a chris- 
tian, there will be found in his writings a philosophy that is 
religious, and a religion that is philosophical. With these 
views the work is again commended to the Christian public, 
in the belief that it will ever be received with favor by the 
reflecting and the candid of all parties, and that whenever it 
is read in the spirit that dictated it, it will be eminently useful. 

Burlinaton, Dec. 26, 1839. J. M. 



\ I) V E RT r S E M E NT 

T O T H E F O U R T II I- () N I) N EDITION 



This corrected edition of the Aids to Reflection is commen- 
ded to Christian readers, in the hope and the trust that the 
power which the book has already exercised over hundreds, 
it may, by God's furtherance, hereafter exercise over thou- 
sands. No age, since Christianity had a name, has more 
pointedly needed the mental discipline taught in this work 
than that in which we now live ; when, in the Author's own 
words, all the great ideas or verities of religion, seem in dan- 
ger of being condensed into idols, or evaporated into meta- 
phors. Between the encroachments, on the one hand, of 
those who so magnify means that they practically impeach 
the supremacy of the ends which those means were meant to 
subserve ; and of those, on the other hand, who, engrossed 
in the contemplation of the great Redemptive Act, rashly 
disregarded to depreciate the appointed ordinances of grace ; 
— between those who, confounding the sensuous Understand- 
ing varying in every individual, with the universal Reason, 
the image of God, the same in all men, inculcate a so-called 
faith, having no demonstrated harmony with the attributes of 
God, or the essential laws of humanity, and being some- 
times inconsistent with both ; and those again who, requiring 
a logical proof of that which, though not contradicting, does 
in its very kind transcend, our reason, virtually deny the ex- 
istence of true faith altogether ; — between these almost 
equal enemies of the truth, Coleridge — in all his worlff , but 
pre-eminently in this — has kindled an inextinguishable bea- 
con of warning and of guidance. In so doing, he has taken 



ADVERTISEMENT. 



his stand on the sure word of Scripture, and is supported by 
the authority of almost every one of our great divines, before 
the prevalence of that system of philosophy, (Locke's), 
which no consistent reasoner can possibly reconcile with the 
undoubted meaning of the Articles and Formularies of the 
English Church : — 

In causaque valet, causamque juvantibus armis. 

The Editor had intended to offer to the reader a few 
words by way cf introduction to some of the leading points of 
philosophy contained in this volume. But he has been de- 
lighted to find the work already done to his hand, in a man- 
ner superior to anything he could have hoped to accomplish 
himself, by an affectionate disciple of Coleridge on the other 
side of the Atlantic. The following Essay- was written by 
the Rev. James Marsh, President of the University of Ver- 
mont, United States of America, and prefixed by him to his 
edition of the Aids to Reflection, published at Burlington in 
1S29. The Editor has printed this Essay entire ; — as well 
out of respect for its author, as believing that the few para- 
graphs in it, having a more special reference to the state of 
opinion in America, will not be altogether without an inter- 
est of their own to the attentive observers of the progress of 
Truth in this or any other country. 

Lincoln's Inn, 25th April, 1839, 



PRELIM IN A RY ESSAY 

IJY JAMKI3 MARS]!, D. D. 

Whethkh the present state of religious feeling, and the pre- 
vailing topics of theological inquiry among us, are particu- 
larly favorable to the success of the Work herewith offered 
to the Public, can be determined only by the result. The 
question, however, has not been left unconsidered ; and how- 
ever that may be, it is not a work, the value of which de- 
pends essentially upon its relation to the passing controver- 
sies of the day. Unless I distrust my own feelings and con- 
victions altogether, I must suppose, that for some, I hope for 
many, minds, it will have a deep and enduring interest. Of 
those classes, for whose use it is more especially designated 
in the Author's Preface, I trust there are many also in this 
country, who will justly appreciate the objects at which it 
aims, and avail themselves of its instruction and assistance. 
I could wish it might be received, by all who concern them- 
selves in religious inquiries and instruction especially, in the 
spirit which seems to me to have animated its great and admira- 
ble author ; and I hesitate not to say, that to all of every class, 
who shall so receive it, and peruse it with the attention and 
thoughtfulness, which it demands and deserves, it will be 
found by experience to furnish, what its title imports, " Aids 
to Reflection" on subjects, upon which every man is bound 
to reflect deeply and in earnest. 

What the specific objects of the Work are, and for whom 
it is written, may be learned in a few words from the Preface 
of the Author. From this, too, it will be seen to be profes- 
sedly It i.-. designed to aid those who wis! 
struction, 01 .ice in th tin i The 



10 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

plan and composition of the Work will to most readers pro- 
bably appear somewhat anomalous ; but reflection upon the 
nature of the objects aimed at, and some little experience of 
its results, may convince them that the method adopted is not 
without its advantages. It is important to observe, that it is 
designed, as its general characteristic, to aid reflection, and 
for the most part upon subjects which can be learned and 
understood only by the exercise of reflection in the strict and 
proper sense of that term. It was not so much to teach a 
speculative system of doctrines built upon established premi- 
ses, for which a different method would have been obviously 
preferable, as to turn the mind continually back upon the pre- 
mises themselves — upon the inherent grounds of truth and 
error in its own being. The only way, in which it is possi- 
ble for any one to learn the science of words, which is one 
of the objects to be sought in the present Work, and the true 
import of those words especially, which most concern us as 
rational and accountable beings, is by reflecting upon, and 
bringing forth into distinct consciousness, those mental acts 
which the words are intended to designate. We must disco- 
ver and distinctly apprehend different meanings, before we can 
appropriate to each a several word, or understand the words 
so appropriated by others. Now it is not too much to say, 
that most men, and even a large proportion of educated men, 
do not reflect sufficiently upon their own inward being, upon 
the constituent laws of their own understanding, upon the 
mysterious powers and agencies of reason, and conscience, 
and will, to apprehend with much distinctness the objects to 
be named, or of course to refer the names with correctness to 
their several objects. Hence the necessity of associating the 
study of words with the study of morals and religion ; and 
that is the most effectual method of instruction, which ena- 
bles the teacher most successfully to fix the attention upon a 
definite meaning, that is, in these studies, upon a particulai 
act, or process, or law of the mind — to call k into distinct 
consciousness, and assign to it its proper name, so that the 



PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 11 

name shall thenceforth have for the learner a distinct, defi- 
nite, and intelligible sense. To impress upon the reader the 
importance of this, and to exemplify it in the particular sub- 
jects taken up in the Work, is a leading aim of the Author 
throughout ; and it is obviously the only possible way by 
which we can arrive at any satisfactory and conclusive re- 
sults on subjects of philosophy, morals, and religion. The 
first principles, the ultimate grounds, of these, so far as they 
are possible objects of knowledge for us, must be sought and 
found in the laws of our being, or they are not found at all. 
The knowledge of these terminates in the knowledge of our- 
selves, of our rational and personal being, of our proper and 
distinctive humanity, and of that Divine Being, in whose 
image we are created. " We must retire inward," says St. 
Bernard, " if we would ascend upward." It is by self-in- 
spection, by reflecting upon the mysterious grounds of our 
own being, that we can alone arrive at any rational know- 
ledge of the central and absolute ground of all being. It is 
by this only, that we can discover that principle of unity and 
consistency, which reason instinctively seeks after, which 
shell reduce to an harmonious system all our views of truth 
and of being, and destitute of which all the knowledge that 
comes to us from without is fragmentary, and in its relation 
to our highest interests as rational beings but the patch-work 
of vanity. 

Now, of necessity, the only method, by which another can 
aid our efforts in the work of reflection, is by first reflecting 
himself, and so pointing out the process and marking the re- 
sult by words, that we can repeat it, and try the conclusion 
by our own consciousness. If he have rejected aright, if he 
have excluded all causes of self-deception, and directed his 
thoughts by those principles of truth and reason, and by those 
laws of the understanding, which belong in common to all 
men, his conclusions must be true for all. We have only to 
repeat the process, impartially to reflect ourselves, unbiassed 
by received opinions, and undeceived by the idols of our own 



12 UDS TO REFLECTION. 

understandings, and we shall find the same truths in the 
dvpths of onr own self-consciousness. I am persuaded that 
such for the most part, will be found to be the case with re- 
gard to the principles developed in the present Work, and 
that those who, with serious reflection and an unbiassed love 
of truth, will refer them to the laws of thought in their own 
minds, to the requirements of their own reason, will find 
there a witness to their truth. 

Viewing the Work in this manner, therefore, as an instruc- 
tive and safe guide to the knowledge of what it concerns all 
men to know, I cannot but consider it in itself as a work of 
great and permanent value to any Christian community. 
Whatever indeed tends to awaken and cherish the power, and 
to form the habit, of reflection upon the great constituent 
principles of our own permanent being and proper humanity, 
and upon the abiding laws of truth and duty, as revealed in 
our reason and conscience, cannot but promote our highest 
interests as moral and rational beings. Even if the particu- 
lar conclusions, to which the Author has arrived, should 
prove erroneous, the evil is comparatively of little importance, 
if he have at the same time communicated to our minds such 
powers of thought, as will enable us to detect his errors, 
and attain by our own efforts to a more perfect knowledge 
of the truth. That some of his views may not be erroneous, 
Or that they are to be received on his authority, the Author, I 
presume, would be the last to affirm ; and although in the 
nature of the case it was impossible for him to aid reflection 
without anticipating and in some measure influencing the re- 
sults, yet the primary tendency and design of the Work is, 
not to establish this or that system, but to cultivate in every 
mind the power and the will to seek earnestly and steadfast- 
ly for the truth in the only direction, in which it can ever be 
found. The work Is no further controversial, than every 
work must be, " that is writ with freedom and reason" upon 
subjects of the same kind ; and if it be found at variance 
with existing opinions and modes of philosophizing, it is 
not necessarily to be considered the fault of the writer. 



PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 13 

In republishing the Work in this country, I could wish that 
it might be received by nil, for whose instruction it was de- 
signed, simply as a didactic work, on its own merits, and 
without controversy. I must not, however, be supposed ig- 
norant of its bearing upon those questions, which have so 
often been, and still are, the prevailing topics of theological 
controversy among us. It was indeed incumbent on me, be- 
fore inviting the attention of the religious community to the 
Work, to consider its relation to existing opinions, and its 
probable influence on the progress of truth. This I have 
done with as severe thought as I am capable of bestowing up- 
on any subject, and I trust too with no want of deference 
and conscientious regard to the feelings and opinions of oth- 
ers. I have not attempted to disguise from myself, nor do 1 
wish to disguise from the readers of the Work, the inconsis- 
tency of some of its leading principles with much that is 
taught and received in our theological circles. Should it 
gain much of the public attention in any way, it will become, 
as it ought to do, an object of special and deep interest to 
all, who would contend for the truth, and labor to establish it 
upon a permanent basis. I venture to assure such, even those 
of them who arc most capable of comprehending" the philo- 
sophical grounds of truth in our speculative systems of the- 
ology, thai in its relation to this whole subject they will find 
it to be a Work of great depth and power, and whether 
right or wrong, eminently deserving their attention. It is not 
to be supposed that all who read, or even all who compre- 
hend it, will be convinced of the soundness of its views, or 
be prepared to abandon those which they have long consid- 
ered essential to the truth. To those, whose understandings 
by long habit have become limited in their powers of appre- 
hension, and as it were identified with certain schemes of 
doctrine, certain modes of contemplating all that pertains to 
religious truth, it may appear novel, strange, and unintelligi- 
ble, or even dangerous in its tendency, and be to them an oc- 
casion of offence, lint I have no fear that anv earnest and 



14 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

single-hearted lover of the truth as it is in Jesus, who will 
free his mind from the idols of preconceived opinion, and 
give himself time and opportunity to understand the Work 
by such reflection as the nature of the subject renders una- 
voidable, will find in it any cause of offence, or any source 
of alarm. If the work become the occasion of controversy 
at all, I should expect it from those, who, instead of reflec- 
ting deeply upon the first principles of truth in their own 
reason and conscience and in the word of God, are more 
accustomed to speculate — that is, from premisses given or as- 
sumed, but considered unquestionable, as the constituted 
point of observation, to look abroad upon the whole field of 
their intellectual vision, and thence to decide upon the true 
form and dimensions of all which meets their view. To 
such 1 would say with deference, that the merits of this work 
cannot be determined by the merely relative aspect of its 
doctrines, as seen from the high ground of any prevailing 
metaphysical or theological system. Those on the contrary 
who will seek to comprehend it by reflection, to learn the true 
meaning of the whole and of all its parts, by retiring into 
their own minds and finding there the true point of observa- 
tion for each, will not be in haste to question the truth or the 
tendency of its principles. I make these remarks, because 
I am anxious, as far as may be, to anticipate the causeless 
fears of all, who earnestly pray and labor for the promotion 
of the truth, and to preclude that unprofitable controversy, 
which might arise from hasty or prejudiced views of a Work 
like this. At the same time I should be far from deprecating 
any discussion which might tend to unfold more fully the 
principles which it teaches, or to exhibit more distinctly its 
true bearing upon the interests of theological science and of 
spiritual religion. It is to promote this object, indeed, that 
I am induced in the remarks which follow to offer some ol 
my own thoughts on these subjects, imperfect I am well 
aware, and such as, for that reason, as well as others, world- 
ly prudence might require me to suppress. If. however, I 



PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 15 

may induce reflecting men, and those who are engaged in 
theological inquiries especially, to indulge a suspicion that all 
truth, which it is important for them to know, is not con- 
tained in the systems of doctrine usually taught, and that this 
Work may be worthy of their serious and reflecting perusal, 
my chief object will be accomplished. I shall of course not 
need to anticipate in detail the contents of the Work itself, 
but shall aim simply to point out what I consider its distin- 
guishing and essential character and tendency, and then di- 
rect the attention of my readers to some of those general 
feelings and views on the subjects of religious truth, and of 
those particulars in the prevailing philosophy of the age, 
which seem to me to be exerting an injurious influence on 
the cause of theological science and of spiritual religion, and 
not only to furnish a fit occasion, but to create an impe- 
rious demand, for a work like that which is here offered to 
the public. 

In regard then to the distinguishing character and tenden- 
cy of the Work itself, it has already been stated to be di- 
dactic, and designed to aid reflection on the principles and 
grounds of truth in our own being ; but, in another point of 
view, and with reference to my present object, it might rath- 
er be denominated a philosophical statement and vindi- 
cation OF THE DISTINCTIVELY SPIRITUAL AND PECULIAR DOC- 
TRINES of the christian system. In order to understand 
more clearly the import of this statement, and the relation ol 
the Author's views to those exhibited in other systems, the 
reader is requested to examine in the first place, what he 
considers the peculiar doctrines of Christianity, and what 
he means by the terms spirit and spiritual. A synoptical 
view of what he considers peculiar to Christianity as a reve- 
lation is given in Aph. VII. on Spiritual Religion, and, if I 
mistake not, will be found essentially to coincide, though 
not perhaps in the language employed, with what among 
us are termed the Evangelical doctrines of religion. Those 
who arc anxious to examine further into the orthodoxy 



]6 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

of the Work in connection with this statement, may con- 
sult the articles on original sin and redemption though I 
must forewarn them, that it will require much study in con- 
nexion with the other parts of the Work, before one unac- 
customed to the Author's language, and unacquainted with 
his views, can fully appreciate the merit of what may be pe- 
culiar in his mode of treating those subjects. With regard 
to the term spiritual, it may be sufficient to remark here, 
that he regards it as having a specific import, and maintains 
that in the sense of the New Testament spiritual and nat- 
ural are contradistinguished, so that what is spiritual is diffe- 
rent in kind from that which is natural, and is in fact super- 
natural. So, too, while morality is something more than 
prudence, religion, the spiritual life, is something more than 
morality. 

In vindicating the peculiar doctrines of the Christian sys- 
tem so stated, and a faith in the reality of agencies and 
modes of being essentially spiritual or supernatural, he aims 
to show their consistency with reason and with the true prin- 
ciples of philosophy, and that indeed, so far from being irra- 
tional, CHRISTIAN FAITH IS THE PERFECTION OF HUMAN REA- 
SON. By reflection upon the subjective grounds of know- 
ledge and faith in the human mind itself, and by an analysis 
of its faculties, he developes the distinguishing characteris- 
tics and necessary relations of the natural and the spiritual 
in our modes of being and knowing, and the all-important 
fact, that although the former does not comprehend the lat- 
ter, yet neither does it preclude its existence. He proves, 
that " the scheme of Christianity, though not discoverable 
by reason, is yet in accordance with it — that link follows 
link by necessary consequence — that religion passes out ot 
the ken of reason only where the eye of reason has readied 
its own horizon — and thai faith is then but its continuation." 
Instead of adopting, like the popular metaphysicians of the 
day, a system of philosophy at war with religion, and which 
tends inevitably to undermine our belief in die reality of am 



PRELIMINARY ESSA? I J 

thing spiritual in the only proper sense of thai word, and 
then coldly and ambiguously referring as for the support of our 
faith to the authority of Revelation, he boldly asserts the re 
ality of something distinctively spiritual in man, and the fu- 
tility of all those modes of philosophizing, in which this is 
not recognized, or which are incompatible with it. He con- 
siders it the highest and most rational purpose of any system 
of philosophy, at least of one professing to be Christian, to 
investigate those higher and peculiar attributes, which dis- 
tinguish us from "brutes that perish — which are the image of 
God in us, and constitute our proper humanity. It is in his 
view the proper business and the duty of the Christian phi- 
losopher to remove all appearance of contradiction between 
the several manifestations of the one Divine Word, to recon- 
cile reason with revelation, and thus to justify the ways of 
God to man. The methods by which he accomplishes this, 
either in regard to the terms in which he enunciates the 
great doctrines of the Gospel, or the peculiar views of phi- 
losophy by which he reconciles them with the subjective 
grounds of faith in the universal reason of man, need not be 
stated here. I will merely observe, that the key to his sys- 
tem will be found in the distinctions, which he makes and il- 
lustrates between nature and free-will, and between the un- 
derstanding and reason. It may meet the prejudices of 
some to remark farther, that in philosophizing on the 
grounds of our faith he docs not profess nor aim to solve 
all mysteries, and to bring all truth within the compre- 
hension of the understanding. A truth may be mysterious, 
and the primary ground of all truth and reality must be so. 
But though we may believe what passeth all understand- 
ing, we cannot believe what is absurd, or contradictory to 
reason. 

"\yhether the Work be well executed, according to the 
idea of it, as now given, or whether the Author have accom- 
plished his purpose, must be determined by those who are ca- 
pable of judging, when they shall have examined and reflee- 
3 



18 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

ted upon the whole as it deserves. The inquiry which I have 
now to propose to my readers is, whether the idea itself be 
a rational one, and whether the purpose of the Author be 
one which a wise man and a Christian ought to aim at, or 
which in the present state of our religious interests, and of 
our theological science, specially needs to be accom- 
plished. 

No one, who has had occasion to observe the general 
feelings and views of our religious community for a few years 
past, can be ignorant, that a strong prejudice exists against 
the introduction of philosophy, in any form, in the discussion 
of theological subjects. The terms philosophy and meta- 
physics, even reason and rational, seem, in the minds of 
those most devoted to the support of religious truth, to have 
forfeited their original, and to have acquired a new import, 
especially in relation to matters of faith. By a philosophi- 
cal view of religious truth would generally be understood a 
view, not only varying from the religion of the Bible in the 
form and manner of presenting it, but at war with it ; and a 
rational religion is supposed to be of course something di- 
verse from revealed religion. A philosophical and rational 
system of religious truth would by most readers among us, if 
I mistake not, be supposed a system deriving its doctrines 
not from revelation, but from the speculative reason of men, 
or at least relying on that only for their credibility. That 
these terms have been used to designate such systems, and 
that the prejudice against reason and philosophy so employed 
is not, therefore, without cause, I need not deny ; nor would 
any friend of revealed truth be less disposed to give credence 
to such systems, than the Author of the Work before us. 

But, on the other hand, a moment's reflection only can be 
necessary to convince any man, attentive to the use of lan- 
guage, that we do at the same time employ these terms in 
relation to truth generally in a better and much higher sense. 
Rational, as contradistinguished from irrational and absurd. 
certainly denotes a quality, which every man would be dis- 



PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 19 

posed to claim, not only for himself, but for his religious opin- 
ions. Now, the adjective reasonable having acquired a dif- 
ferent use and signification, the word rational is the adjec- 
tive corresponding in sense to the substantive reason, and 
signifies what is conformed to reason. In one sense, then, 
all men would appeal to reason in behalf of their religious 
faith ; they would deny that it was irrational or absurd. If 
we do not in this sense adhere to reason, we forfeit our pre- 
rogative as rational beings, and our faith is no better than the 
bewildered dream of a man who has lost his reason. Nay, I 
maintain that when we use the term in this higher sense, it is 
impossible for us to believe on any authority what is directly 
contradictory to reason and seen to be so. No evidence from 
another source, and no authority could convince us, that a 
proposition in geometry, for example, is false, which our rea- 
son intuitively discovers to be true. Now if we suppose (and 
we may at least suppose this,) that reason has the same pow- 
er of intuitive insight in relation to certain moral and spirit- 
ual truths, as in relation to the truths of geometry, then it 
would be equally impossible to divest us of our belief of those 
truths. 

Furthermore, we are not only unable to believe the same 
proposition to be false, which our reason sees to be true, but 
we cannot believe another proposition, which by the exercise 
of the same rational faculty we see to be incompatible with 
the former, or to contradict it. We may, and probably often 
do, receive with a certain kind and degree of credence opin- 
ions, which reflection would show to be incompatible. But 
when we have reflected, and discovered the inconsistency, 
we cannot retain both. We cannot believe two contradictory 
propositions knowing them to be such. It would be irration- 
al to do so. 

Again, we cannot conceive it possible, that what by the 
same power of intuition we see to be universally and neces- 
sarily true should appear otherwise to any other rational be- 
ing. We cannot, for example, but consider the propositions 



%Q AIDS TO HEFLKCTION. 

of geometry as necessarily true for all rational beings. So, 
too, a little reflection, I think, will convince any one, that we 
attribute the same necessity of reason to the principles of 
moral rectitude. What in the clear day-light of our reason, 
and after mature reflection, we see to be right, we cannot 
believe to be wrong in the view of other rational beings in 
the distinct exercise of their reason. Nay, in regard to 
those truths, which are clearly submitted to the view of our 
reason, and which we behold with distinct and steadfast in- 
tuitions, we necessarily attribute to the Supreme Reason, to 
the Divine Mind, views the same, or coincident, with those of 
our own reason. We cannot, (I say it with reverence and I 
trust with some apprehension of the importance of the asser- 
tion,) we cannot believe that to be right in the view of the Su- 
preme Reason, which is clearly and decidedly wrong in the 
view of our own. It would be contradictory to reason, it 
would be irrational, to believe it, and therefore we cannot 
do so, till we lose our reason, or cease to exercise it. 

I would ask, now, whether this be not an authorized use of 
the words reason and rational, and whether so used they do 
not mean something. If it be so — and I appeal to the mind 
of every man capable of reflection and of understanding the 
use of language, if it be not— then there is meaning in the 
terms universal reason, and unity of reason, as used in this 
work. There is, and can be, in this highest sense of the 
word, but one reason, and whatever contradicts that reason, 
being seen to do so, cannot be received as matter either of 
knowledge or faith. To reconcile religion with reason used 
in this sense, therefore, and to justify the ways of God to 
man, or in the view of reason, is so far from being irrational 
that reason imperatively demands it of us. We cannot as 
rational beings, believe a proposition on the grounds of reason, 
and deny it on the authority of revelation. We cannot be- 
lieve a proposition in philosophy, and deny the same propo- 
sition in theology ; nor can we believe two incompatible pro- 
positions on the different grounds of reason and revelation. 



PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 21 

So far as we compare our thoughts, the objects of our know 
ledge and faith, and by reflection refer them to their common 
measure in the universal laws of reason, so far the instinct 
of reason impels us to reject whatever is contradictory and 
absurd, and to bring unity and consistency into all our views 
of truth. Thus, in the language of the Author of this Work, 
though "the word rational has been strangely abused of late 
times, this must not disincline us to the weighty considera- 
tion, that though tfulness, and a desire to rest all our convic- 
tions on grounds of right reason, arc inseparable from the 
character of a Christian." 

But I beg the reader to observe, that in relation to the doc- 
trines of spiritual religion — to all that he considers the pecu- 
liar doctrines of the Christian revelation, the Author assigns 
to reason only a negative validity. It does not teach us what 
those doctrines are, or what they are not, except that they 
are not, and cannot be, such as contradict the clear convic- 
tions of right reason. But his views on this point are fully 
stated in the Work. 

If then it be our prerogative, as rational beings, and our 
duty as Christians, to think, as well as to act, rationally , — to 
see that our convictions of truth rest on the grounds of right 
reason ; and if it be one of the clearest dictates of reason, 
that we should endeavor to shun, and on discovery should re- 
ject, whatever is contradictory to the universal laws of thought, 
or to doctrines already established, I know not by what means 
we are to avoid the application of philosophy, at least to 
some extent, in the study of theology. For to determine what 
are the grounds of right reason, what are those ultimate 
truths, and those universal laws of thought, which we cannot 
rationally contradict, and by reflection to compare with these 
whatever is proposed for our belief, is in fact, to philoso- 
phize ; and whoever does this to a greater or less extent, is 
so far a philosopher in the best and highest sense of the 
word. To this extent we are bound to philosophize in the- 
ology, as well as in every other «;cienre. For what is not ra- 



AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

tional in theology, is, of course, irrational, and cannot be of 
the household of faith : and to determine whether it be rational 
in the sense already explained or not. is the province of phi- 
losophy. It is in this sense that the Work before us is to be 
considered a philosophical work, namely, that it proves the 
doctrines of the Christian Faith to be rational, and exhibits 
philosophical grounds for the possibility of a truly spiritual 
religion. The reality of those experiences, or states of 
being, winch constitute experimental or spiritual religion, rests 
on other grounds. It is incumbent on the philosopher to free 
them from the contradictions of reason, and nothing more ; 
and who will deny, that to do this is a purpose worthy of the 
ablest philosopher and the most devoted Christian ? Is it 
not desirable to convince all men that the doctrines, which 
we affirm to be revealed in the Gospel, are not contradictory 
to the requirements of reason and conscience? Is it not, on 
the other hand, vastly important to the cause of religious 
truth, and even to the practical influence of religion in our 
own minds, and the minds of the community at large, that 
we should attain and exhibit views of philosophy and doc- 
trines in metaphysics, which are at least compatible with, if 
they do not specially favour, those views of religion, which, 
on other grounds, we find it our duty to believe and main- 
tain ? For, I beg it may be observed, as a point of great 
moment, that it is not the method of the genuine philoso- 
pher to separate his philosophy and religion, and adopting his 
principles independently in each, to leave them to be recon- 
ciled or not, as the case may be. He has, and can have, 
rationally but one system, in which his philosophy becomes 
religious, and his religion philosophical. Nor am I disposed, 
in compliance with popular opinion, to limit the application 
of this remark, as is usually done, to the mere external evi- 
dences of revelation. The philosophy which we adopt will 
and must influence not only our decision of the question, 
whether a book be of divine authority, but our views also of 
its meanine:. 



PRELIMINARY ESSAY. ^3 

But this is a subject, on which, if possible, I would avoid 
being misunderstood, and must, therefore, exhibit it more 
fully, even at the risk of repeating what was said before, or 
is elsewhere found in the Work. It has been already, I be- 
lieve, distinctly enough slated, that reason and philosophy 
ought to prevent our reception of doctrines claiming the au- 
thority of revelation only so far as the very necessities of our 
rational being require. However mysterious the thing affirm- 
ed may be, though it passeth all understanding, if it can- 
not be shown to contradict the unchangeable principles of 
right reason, its being incomprehensible to our understand- 
ings is not an obstacle to our faith. If it contradict reason, 
we cannot believe it, but must conclude, either that the wri- 
ting is not of divine authority, or that the language has been 
misinterpreted. So far it seems to me, that our philosophy 
lit to modify our views of theological doctrines, and our 
mode of interpreting the language of an inspired writer. 
But then we must be cautious, that we philosophize rightly, 
and " do not call that reason which is not so." Otherwise 
we may be led by the supposed requirements of reason to in- 
terpret metaphorically, what ought to be received literally, 
and evacuate the Scriptures of their most important doc- 
trines. But what I mean to say here is, that we cannot avoid 
the application of our philosophy in the interpretation of the 
language of Scripture, and in the explanation of the doc- 
s of religion generally. We cannot avoid incurring the 
danger just alluded to of philosophizing erroneously, even to 
the extent of rejecting as irrational that which tends to the 
perfection of reason itself. And hence I maintain, that in- 
stead of pretending to exclude philosophy from our religious 
inquiries, it is very important that we philosophize in ear- 
nest — that we should endeavour by profound reflection to 
learn the real requirements of reason, and attain a true 
knowledge of ourselves. 

If any dispute the n of thus combining the study 

of philosophy with that of religion, 1 would beg them to 



24 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

point out the age since that of the Apostles, in which the 
prevailing metaphysical opinions have not distinctly manifes- 
ted themselves in the prevailing views of religion ; and if, as 
I fully believe will be the case, they fail to discover a single 
system of theology, a single volume on the subject of the 
Christian religion, in which the author's views are not modified 
by the metaphysical opinions of the age or of the individual, 
it would be desirable to ascertain, whether this influence be 
accidental or necessary. The metaphysician analyzes the 
faculties and operations of the human mind, and teaches us 
to arrange, to classify, and to name them, according to his 
views of their various distinctions. The language of the 
Scriptures, at least to a great extent, speaks of subjects that 
can be understood only by a reference to those same powers 
and processes of thought and feeling, which we have learned 
to think of, and to name, according to our particular system 
of metaphysics. How is it possible then to avoid interpre- 
ting the one by the other ? Let us suppose, for example, 
£hat a man has studied and adopted the philosophy of Brown, 
is it possible for him to interpret the Sth chapter of Romans, 
without having his views of its meaning influenced by his 
philosophy ? Would he not unavoidably interpret the lan- 
guage and explain the doctrines, which it contains, different- 
ly from one, who should have adopted such views of the hu- 
man mind as are taught in this work ? I know it is custo- 
mary to disclaim the influence of philosophy in the business 
of interpretation, and every writer now-a-days on such sub- 
jects will assure us, that he has nothing to do with metaphy- 
sics, but is guided only by common sense and the laws of 
interpretation. But I should like to know how a man comes 
by any common sense in relation to the movements and laws 
of his intellectual and moral being without metaphysics. 
What is the common sense of a Hottentot on subjects of this 
sort ? I have no hesitation in saying, that from the very na- 
ture of the case, it is nearly if not quite, impossible for any 
man entirely to separate his philosophical views of the hu- 



PRELIMINARY ESSA¥. -•"> 

.'nan mind from li is reflections on religious subjects. Proba- 
bly no man has endeavoured more faithfully to do this, per- 
haps no one has succeeded better in giving the truth of 
Scripture free from the glosses of metaphysics, than Professor 
Stuart. Yet I should risk little in saying, that a reader deep 
ly versed in the language of metaphysics, extensively ac- 
quainted with the philosophy of different ages, and the pe- 
culiar phraseology of different schools might ascertain his 
metaphysical system from many a passage of his Commenta- 
ry oji the Epistle to the Hebrews. What then, let me ask. 
is the possible use to the cause of truth and of religion, from 
thus perpetually decrying philosophy in theological inquiries, 
when we cannot avoid it if we would ? Every man, who 
has reflected at all, has his metaphysics ; and if he reads on 
religious subjects, he interprets and understands the lan- 
guage, which he employs, by the help of his metaphysics. 
He cannot do otherwise. — And the proper inquiry is, not 
whether we admit our philosophy into our theological and 
religious investigations, but whether our philosophy be right 
and true. For myself, I am fully convinced that we can 
have no right views of theology till we have right views of 
the human mind ; and that these are to be acquired only by 
laborious and persevering reflection. My belief is, that the 
distinctions unfolded in this Work will place us in the way 
to truth, and relieve us from numerous perplexities, in which 
we arc involved by the philosophy which we have so long ta- 
ken for our guide. For we are greatly deceived, if we sup- 
pose for a moment that the systems of theology which have 
been received among us, or even the theoretical views which 
are now most popular, are free from the entanglements of 
worldly wisdom. The readers of this Work will be able to 
see, I think, more clearly the import of this remark, and the 
true bearing of the received views of philosophy on our theo- 
logical inquiries. Those who study the Work without pre- 
judice, and adopt its principles to any considerable extent, 
will understand too h<>w deeply an age may be ensnared in 

! 



"2(1 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

the metaphysical webs of its own weaving, or entangled in 
the net which the speculations of a former generation have 
thrown over it, and yet suppose itself blessed with a perfect 
immunity from the dreaded evils of metaphysics. 

But before I proceed to remark on those particulars, in 
which our prevailing philosophy seems to be dangerous in its 
tendency, and unfriendly to the cause of spiritual religion, I 
must beg leave to guard myself and the Work from misappre- 
hension on another point of great importance in its relation 
to the whole subject. While it is maintained that reason 
and philosophy, in their true character, ought to have a cer- 
tain degree and extent of influence in the formation of our 
religious system, and that our metaphysical opinions, what- 
ever they may be, will, almost invariably, modify more or less 
our theoretical views of religious truth generally, it is yet a 
special object of the Author of this Work to show that the 
spiritual life, or what among us is termed experimental religion, 
is, in itself, and in its own proper growth and developement, 
essentially distinct from the forms and processes of the un- 
derstanding ; and that, although a true faith cannot contra- 
dict any universal principle of speculative reason, it is yet in 
a certain sense independent of the discursions of philosophy, 
and in its proper nature beyond the reach " of positive 
science and theoretical insight." " Christianity is not a 
theory, or a speculation ; but a life. Not a philosophy of 
life, but a life and a living process." It is not, therefore, so 
properly a species of knowledge, as a form of being. And 
although the theoretical views of the understanding, and the 
motives of prudence which it presents, may be, to a certain 
extent, connected with the developememt of the spiritual 
principle of religious life in the Christain, yet a true and 
living faith is not incompatible with at least some degree of 
speculative error. As the acquisition of merely speculative 
knowledge cannot of itself communicate the principle of spi- 
ritual life, so neither does that principle, and the living 
process of its growth, depend wholly, at least, upon the 



PRELIMINARY ESSA^ , 



27 



degree of speculative knowledge with which it co-exists. 
That religion, of which our blessed Saviour is himself the 
essential Form and the living Word, and to which he imparts 
the actuating Spirit, has a principle of unity and consistency 
in itself distinct from the unity and consistency of our theo- 
retical views. Of this we have evidence in every day's ob- 
servation of Christian character ; for how often do we see 
and acknowledge the power of religion, and the growth of a 
spiritual life, in minds but little gifted with speculative know- 
ledge, and little versed in the forms of logic or philosophy ! 
How obviously, too, does the living principle of religion mani- 
fest the same specific character, the same essential form, 
amidst all the diversities of condition, of talents, of educa- 
tion, and natural disposition, with which it is associated ; 
every where rising above nature, and the powers of the na- 
tural man, and unlimited in its goings on by the forms in 
which the understanding seeks to comprehend and confine 
its spiritual energies. There are diversities of gifts, but the 
same Spirit ; and it is no less true now, than in the age of 
the Apostles, that in all lands, and in every variety of cir- 
cumstances, the manifestations of spiritual life are essentially 
the same ; and all who truly believe in heart, however di- 
verse in natural condition, in the character of their under- 
standings, and even in their theoretical views of truth, are 
one in Christ Jesus. The essential faith is not to be found 
in the understanding or the speculative theory, but " the life, 
the substance, the hope, the love — in one word, the faith — 
these are derivatives from the practical, moral, and spiritual 
nature and being of man." Speculative systems of theolo- 
gy indeed have often had little connexion with the essential 
spirit of religion, and are usually little more than schemes 
resulting from the strivings of the finite understanding to 
comprehend and exhibit under its own forms and conditions 
a mode of being and spiritual truths essentially diverse from 
their proper objects, and with which they are incommensu- 
rate. 



28 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

This I am aware is an imperfect, and I fear may be an un- 
intelligible view of a subject exceedingly difficult of appre- 
hension at the best. If so, I must beg the reader's indul- 
gence, and request him to suspend his judgment, as to the 
absolute intelligibility of it, till he becomes acquainted with 
the language and sentiments of the Work itself. It will, 
however, I hope, be so far understood, at least, as to answer 
the purpose for which it was introduced — of precluding the 
supposition that, in the remarks which preceded, or in those 
which follow, any suspicion is intended to be expressed, with 
regard to the religious principles or the essential faith of those 
who hold the opinions in question. According to this view of 
the inherent and essential nature of Spiritual Religion, as ex- 
isting in the practical reason of man, we may not only ad- 
mit, but can better understand, the possibility of what every 
charitable Christian will acknowledge to be a fact, so far as 
human observation can determine facts of this sort — that a 
man may be truly religious, and essentially a believer at heart, 
while his understanding is sadly bewildered with the attempt 
to comprehend and express philosophically, what yet he feels 
and knows spiritually. It is indeed impossible for us to tell, 
how far the understanding may impose upon itself by partial 
views and false disguises, without perverting the will, or es- 
tranging it from the laws and the authority of reason and 
the divine word. We cannot say to what extent a false sys- 
tem of philosophy and metaphysical opinions, which in their 
natural and uncounteracted tendency would go to destroy all 
religion, may be received in a Christian community, and yet 
the power of spiritual religion retain its hold and its efficacy 
in the hearts of the people. We may perhaps believe that, 
in opposition to all the might of false philosophy, so long as 
the great body of the people have the Bible in their hands 
and are taught to reverence and receive its heavenly instruc- 
tions, though the Church may suffer injury from unwise and 
unfruitful speculations, it will yet be preserved ; and that the 
spiritual seed of the divine word, though mingled with many 



PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 2i> 

tares of worldly wisdom and philosophy falsely so called, will 
yet spring up, and bear fruit unto everlasting life. 

But though we may hope and believe this, we cannot avoid 
believing, at the same time, that injury must result from an 
unsuspecting confidence in metaphysical opinions, which are 
essentially at variance with the doctrines of Revelation. Espe- 
cially must the effect be injurious where those opinions lead 
gradually to alter our views of religion itself, and of all that 
is peculiar in the Christian system The great mass of com- 
munity, who know little of metaphysics, and whose faith in 
revelation is not so readily influenced by speculations not im- 
mediately connected with it, may, indeed, for a time, escape 
the evil, and continue to receive with meekness the ingrafted 
word. But in the minds of the better educated, especially 
those who think and follow out their conclusions with reso- 
lute independence of thought, the result must be either a loss 
of confidence in the opinions themselves, or a rejection of all 
those parts of the Christian system which are at variance 
with them. Under particular circumstances, indeed, where 
both the metaphysical errors, and the great doctrines of the 
Christian Faith, have a strong hold upon the minds of a com- 
munity, a protracted struggle may take place, and earnest 
and long-continued efforts may be made to reconcile opin- 
ions, which we are resolved to maintain, with a faith which 
our consciences will not permit us to abandon. But so long 
as the effort continues, and such opinions retain their hold 
upon our confidence, it must be by some diminution of the 
fulness and simplicity of our faith. To a greater or less de- 
gree, according to the education and habits of thought in dif- 
ferent individuals, the word of God is received with doubt, 
or with such glozing modifications as enervate its power. 
Thus the light from heaven is intercepted, and we are left to 
a shadow-fight of mciaphj sical schemes and metaphorical in- 
terpretations. While one parly, with conscientious and car- 
nest eadeavours, and at great expense of talent and ingenui- 
ty, contends for the Faith, and among the possible shapings 



30 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

of the received metaphysical system, seeks that which will 
best comport with the simplicity of the Gospel, — another 
more boldly interprets the language of the Gospel itself in 
conformity with those views of religion to which their phi- 
losophy seems obviously to conduct them. The substantial 
being and the living energy of the Word, which is not only 
the light but the life of men, is either misapprehended or de- 
nied by all parties ; and even those who contend for what 
they conceive the literal import of the Gospel, do it — as they 
must to avoid too glaring absurdity — with such explanations 
of its import, as make it become, in no small degree, the 
words of man's wisdom, rather than a simple demonstra- 
tion of the Spirit, and of power. Hence, although such as 
have experienced the spiritual and life-giving power of the 
Divine Word, may be able, through the promised aids of the 
Spirit, to overcome the natural tendency of speculative error, 
and, by the law of the Spirit of life which is in them, may 
at length be made free from the law of sin and death, yet 
who can tell how much they may lose of the blessings of the 
Gospel, and be retarded in their spiritual growth when they 
are but too often fed with the lifeless and starveling products 
of the human understanding, instead of that living bread 
which came down from hearten ? Who can tell, moreover, 
how many, through the prevalence of such philosophical er- 
rors as lead to misconceptions of the truth, or create a pre- 
judice against it, and thus tend to intercept the light from 
heaven, may continue in their ignorance, alienated from the 
life of God, and groping in the darkness of their own un- 
derstandings ? 

But however that may be, enlightened Christians, and es- 
pecially Christian instructers, know it to be their duty, as far 
as possible, to prepare the way for the full and unobstructed 
influence of the Gospel, to do all in their power to remove 
those natural prejudices, and those errors of the understan- 
ding, which are obstacles to the truth, that the word of God 
mav find access to the heart, and conscience, and reason ol 



PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 31 

every man. that it may have free course, and run, and be 
glorified. My own belief, that such obstacles to the influ- 
ence of truth exist in the speculative and metaphysical opin- 
ions generally adopted in this country, and that the present 
Work is in some measure at least calculated to remove them, 
is pretty clearly indicated by the remarks which I have alrea- 
dy made. But, to be perfectly explicit on the subject, I do 
not hesitate to express my conviction, that the natural ten- 
dency of some of the leading principles of our prevailing 
system of metaphysics, and those which must unavoidably 
have more or less influence on our theoretical views of reli- 
gion, are of an injurious and dangerous tendency, and that 
so long as we retain them, however we may profess to exclude 
their influence from our theological inquiries, and from the 
interpretation of Scripture, we can maintain no consistent 
system of Scriptural theology, nor clearly and distinctly ap- 
prehend the spiritual import of Scripture language. The 
grounds of this conviction I shall proceed to exhibit, though 
only in a partial manner, as I could not do more without anti- 
cipating the contents of the Work itself, instead of merely 
preparing the reader to peruse them with attention. I am 
aware, too, that some of the language, which I have already 
employed, and shall be obliged to employ, will not convey its 
full import to the reader, till he becomes acquainted with 
some of the leading principles and distinctions unfolded in 
the Work. But this, also, is an evil which I saw no means 
of avoiding without incurring a greater, and writing a book 
instead of a brief essay. 

Let it be understood, then, without further preface, that by 
the prevailing system of metaphysics, I mean the system, of 
which in modern times Locke is the reputed author, and the 
leading principles of which, with various modifications, more 
or less important, but not altering its essential character, have 
been almost universally received in this country. It should be 
observed, too, that the causes enumerated by the Author, 
as having elevated it to its " pride of place" in Europe 



,$•> AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

have been aided by other favouring circumstances here. In 
the minds of our religious community, especially, some of 
its most important doctrines have become associated with 
names justly loved and revered among ourselves, and so con- 
nected with all our theoretical views of religion, that a man 
can hardly hope to question their validity without hazarding 
his reputation, not only for orthodoxy, but even for common 
sense. To controvert, for example, the prevailing doctrines 
with regard to the freedom of the will, the sources of our 
knowledge, the nature of the understanding as containing 
the controlling principles of our whole being, and the univer- 
sality of the law of cause and effect, even in connection with 
the argument and the authority of the most powerful intel- 
lect of the age, may even now be worse than in vain. Yet 
I have reasons for believing there are some among us, and 
that their number is fast increasing, who are willing to revise 
their opinions on these subjects, and who will contemplate 
the views presented in this Work with a liberal, and some- 
thing of a prepared feeling, of curiosity. The difficulties in 
which men find themselves involved by the received doctrines 
on these subjects, in their most anxious efforts to explain and 
defend the peculiar doctrines of spiritual religion, have led 
many to suspect that there must be some lurking error in the 
premises. It is not that these principles lead us to mysteries 
which we cannot comprehend ; they are found, or believed at 
least by many, to involve us in absurdities which we can com- 
prehend. It is necessary, indeed, only to form some notion 
of the distinctive and appropriate import of the term spirit- 
ual, as opposed to natural in the New Testament, and then 
to look at the writings, or hear the discussions, in which the 
doctrines of the Spirit and of spiritual influences are taught 
and defended, to see the insurmountable nature of the obsta- 
cles, which these metaphysical dogmas throw in the way of 
the most powerful minds. To those who shall read this Work 
with any degree of reflection, it must, I think, be obvious, 
that something more is implied in the continual opposition of 



PRELIMINARY tSbW. 33 

these terms in the New Testament, than can be explained 
consistentlj with the prevailing opinions on the subjects 
above enumerated ; and that through their influence oui 
highest notions of that distinction have been rendered con- 
fused, contradictory, and inadequate. I have already direc- 
ted the attention of the reader to those parts of the Work, 
where this distinction is unfolded; and had I no other 
grounds than the arguments and views there exhibited, I 
should be convinced that so long as we hold the doctrines of 
Locke and the Scotch metaphysicians respecting power. 
cause and effect, motives, and tiie freedom of the will, we 
not only can make and defend no essential distinction be- 
tween that which is natural, and that which is spiritual, 
but we cannot even find rational grounds for the feeling of 
moral obligation, and the distinction between regret and 
remorse. 

According to the system of these authors, as nearly and 
distinctly as my limits will permit me to state it, the same 
law of cause and efl'ect is the law of the universe. It ex- 
tends to the moral and spiritual — if in courtesy these terms 
may still be used — no less than to the properly natural pow- 
ers and agencies of our being. The acts of the free-will 
are pre-determined by a cause out of the will, according to 
the same law of cause and effect which controls the changes 
in the physical world. We have no notion of power but 
uniformity of antecedent and consequent. The notion of 
a power in the will to act freely is therefore nothing more 
than an inherent capacity of being acted upon, agreeably to 
its nature, and according io a fixed law, by the motives 
which ate present in the understanding. I feel authorized 
to take this statement partly from Brown's Philosophy, be- 
cause that work lias been decidedly approved by our high- 
est theological authorities; and indeed it would not be es- 
sential!} if expressed in the precise terms used by 
any of the writers most usually quoted i : : l io these 
subjt i 



34 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

I am aware that variations may be found in the mode of 
stating these doctrines, but I think every candid reader, who 
is acquainted with the metaphysics and theology of this coun- 
try, will admit the above to be a fair representation of the 
form in which they are generally received. I am aware, too, 
that much has been said and written to make out consistently 
with these general principles, a distinction between natural 
and moral causes, natural and moral ability, and inability, 
and the like. But I beg all lovers of sound and rational phi- 
losophy to look carefully at the general principles, and see 
whether there be, in fact, ground left for any such distinc- 
tions of this kind as are worth contending for. My first step 
in arguing with a defender of these principles, and of the 
distinctions in question, as connected with them, would be 
to ask for his definition of nature and natural. And when 
he had arrived at a distinctive general notion of the import 
of these, it would appear, if I mistake not, that he had first 
subjected our whole being to the law of nature, and then 
contended for the existence of something which is not nature. 
For in their relation to the law of moral rectitude, and to the 
feeling of moral responsibility, what difference is there, and 
what difference can there be, between what are called natural 
and those which are called moral powers and affections, if 
they are all under the control of the same universal law of 
cause and effect ? If it still be a mere nature, and the de- 
terminations of our will be controlled by causes out of the 
will, according to our nature, then I maintain that a moral 
nature has no more to do with the feeling of responsibility 
than any other nature. 

Perhaps the difficulty may be made more obvious in this 
way. It will be admitted that brutes are possessed of various 
natures, some innocent or useful, otherwise noxious, but all 
alike irresponsible in a moral point of view. But why ? 
Simply because they act in accordance with their natures. 
They possess, each according to its proper nature, certain ap- 
petites and susceptibilities, which are stimulated and acted 



PRELIMINARY ESSAT. 3o 

upon by (heir appropriate objects in the world of the senses; 
and the relation — the law of action and reaction — subsisting 
between these specific susceptibilities and their corresponding 
outward objects, constitutes their nature. They have a pow- 
er of selecting and choosing in the world of sense the ob- 
jects appropriate to the wants of their nature ; but that 
nature is the sole law of their being. The power of choice 
is but a part of it. instrumental in accomplishing its ends, but 
not capable of rising above it, of controlling its impulses, 
and of determining itself with reference to a purely ideal law, 
distinct from their nature. They act in accordance with 
the law of cause and effect, which constitutes their several 
natures, and cannot do otherwise. They are, therefore, not 
responsible — not capable of guilt, or of remorse. 

Now lot u£ suppose another beings possessing, in addition 
to the susceptibilities of the brute, certain other specific 
susceptibilities with their correlative objects, either in the sen- 
sible world, or in a future world, but that these are subjected, 
like the other to the same binding and inalienable law of 
cause and effect. What, I ask is the amount of the diffe- 
rence thus supposed between this being and the brute ? The 
supposed addition, it is to be understood, is merely an addi- 
tion to its nature ; and the only power of will belonging to 
it is, as in the case of the brute, only a capacity of choosing 
and acting uniformly in accordance with its nature. These 
additional susceptibilities still act but as they are acted upon ; 
and the will is determined accordingly. What advantage is 
gained in this case by railing these supposed additions moral 
affections, and their correlative stimulants moral causes ? 
Do we thereby find any rational ground for the feeling of 
moral responsibility, for conscience, for remorse ? The being 
acts according to its nature, and why is it blameworthy more 
than the brute ? Tf the moral cause existing out of the will 
be a power or cause which, in its relation to the specific sus- 
ceptibility of the moral being, produces under the same cir- 
cumstances uniformly the «ame result, according to the law of 



36 AIDS TO KEFLECTION. 

causo and effect ; if the acts of the will be subject to tic* 
same law, as a mere link in the chain of antecedents and 
consequents, and thus a part of our nature, what is gained, 
T ask again, by the distinction of a moral and a physical na- 
ture ? It is still only a nature under the law of cause and 
effect, and the liberty of the moral being is under the same 
condition with the liberty of the brute. Both are free to 
follow and fulfil the law of their nature, and both are alike 
bound by that law, as by an adamantine chain. The very 
conditions of the law preclude the possibility of a power to 
act Otherwise than according to their nature. They preclude 
the very idea of a free-will, and render the feeling of moral 
responsibility not an enigma merely, not a mystery; but a 
self-contradiction and an absurdity. 

Turn the matter as we will — call these correlatives, name- 
ly, the inherent susceptibilities and the causes acting on them 
from without, natural, or moral, or spiritual — so long as their 
action and reaction, or the law of reciprocity, which consti- 
tutes their specific natures, is considered as the controlling 
law of our whole being, so long as We refuse to admit the 
existence in the will of a power capable of rising above this 
law, and controlling its operation by an act of absolute self- 
determination, so long w T e shall be involved in perplexities 
both in morals and religion. At all events, the only method 
of avoiding them will be to adopt the creed of the Necessi- 
tarians entire, to give man over to an irresponsible nature as 
a better sort of animal, and resolve the will of the Supreme 
Reason into a blind and irrational fate. 

I am well aware of the objections that will be made to this 
statement, and especially the demonstrated incornprehensible- 
ness of a self-determining power. To this I may be permit- 
ted to answer, that, admitting the power to originate an act 
or state of mind to be beyond the capacity of our understan- 
dings to comprehend, it is still not contradictory to reason ; 
and that I find it more easy to believe the existence of that, 
which is simply incomprehensible to my understanding* than 



PRELIMINARY ESSAT. 37 

of that which involves an absurdity for my reason. I v< - 
tine to affirm, moreover, that however we may bring our un- 
derstandings into bondage to the more comprehensible doc- 
trine, simply because it is comprehensible under the forms of 
the understanding, every man does, in fact, believe himself 
possessed of freedom in the higher sense of self-detcrmina- 
tion. Every man's conscience commands him to believe it, 
as the only rational ground of moral responsibility. Every 
man's conscience, too, betrays the fact that he does believe it, 
whenever for a moment he indulges the feeling either of 
moral self-approbation, or of remorse. Nor can we on any 
other grounds justify the ways of God to man upon the sup- 
position that he inflicts or will inflict any other punishment 
than that which is simply remedial or disciplinary. But this 
subject will be found more fully explained in the course of 
the Work. My present object is merely to show the neces- 
sity of some system in relation to these subjects different 
from the received, one. 

It may perhaps be thought, that the language used above 
is too strong and too positive. But I venture to ask every 
candid man, at least every one who has not committed him- 
self by writing and publishing on the subject, whether, in 
considering the great questions connected with moral accoun- 
tability and the doctrine of rewards and punishments, he has 
not felt himself pressed with such difficulties as those above 
stated ; and whether he has ever been able fully to satisfy his 
reason, that there was not a lurking contradiction in the idea 
of a being created and placed under the law of its nature, 
and possessing at the same time a feeling of moral obligation 
to fulfil a law above its nature. That many have been in 
this state of mind I know. I know, too. that some whose 
moral and religious feelings had led them to a full belief in 
the doctrines of spiritual religion, but who at the same time 
had bren taught to receive the prevailing opinions in meta- 
physics, have found these opinions carrying ihem unavoidably, 
if they would be consequent in their reasonings, and not do 



38 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

violence to their reason, to adopt a system of religion which 
does not prefess to be spiritual, and thus have been compel- 
led to choose between their philosophy and their religion. In 
most cases indeed, where men reflect at all, I am satisfied that 
it requires all the force of authority, and all the influence of 
education, to carry the mind over these difficulties ; and that 
then it is only by a vague belief, that, though we cannot see 
how, there must be some method of reconciling what seems 
to be so contradictory. 

If examples were wanting to prove that serious and trying 
difficulties are felt to exist here, enough may be found, as it 
has appeared to me, in the controversy respecting the nature 
and origin of sin, which is at this moment interesting the 
public mind. Let any impartial observer trace the progress 
of that discussion, and after examining the distinctions which 
are made or attempted to be made, decide whether the sub- 
ject, as there presented, be not involved in difficulties, which 
cannot be solved on the principles to which, hitherto, both 
parties have adhered ; whether, holding as they do the same 
premises in regard to the freedom of the will, they can avoid 
coming to the same conclusion in regard to the nature and 
origin of sin ; whether, in fact, the distinctions aimed at must 
not prove merely verbal distinctions, and the controversy a 
fruitless one. But in the September number of the Christian 
Spectator, for 1829, the reader will find remarks on this sub- 
ject, to which 1 beg leave to refer him, and which I could 
wish him attentively to consider in connexion with the re- 
marks which I have made. I allude to the correspondence 
with the editors near the end of the number. The letter 
there inserted is said to be. and obviously is, from the pen of 
a very learned and able writer: and I confess it has been no 
small gratification and encouragement to me, while labouring 
to bring this Work and this subject before the public, to find 
such a state of feeling expressed, concerning the great ques- 
tion at issue, by such a writer. It will be seen by a reference 
to p. 545 of the C. S., that he places the " nucleus of the 



PRELIMINARY LSSAV. 39 

dispute" just where it is plaeed in this Work and in the above 
remarks. It will be seen, loo, that by throwing authorities 
aside, and studying his own mind, he has " come seriously to 
doubt/' whether the received opinions with regard to motives, 
the law of cause and effect, and the freedom of the will, 
may not be erroneous. They appear to him " to be border- 
ing on fatalism, if not actually embracing it." He doubts, 
whether the mind may not have within itself the adequate 
cause of its own acts ; whether indeed it have not a self-de- 
termining power, " for the power in question involves the 
idea of originating volition. Less than this it cannot be con- 
ceived to involve, and yet be free agency." Now tins is just 
the view offered in the present Work : and, as it seems to me, 
these are just the doubts and conclusions which every one 
will entertain, who lays aside authority, and reflects upon the 
aoings-on of his own mind, and the dictates of his own rea- 
son and conscience. 

But let us look for a moment at the remarks of the editors 
in reply to the letter above quoted. They maintain, in rela- 
tion to original sin and the perversion of the will, that from 
either the original or the acquired strength of certain natu- 
ral appetites, principles of self-love, &c, " left to themselves," 
the corruption of the heart will certainly follow. " In every 
instance the will does, in fact, yield to the demands of these. 
But whenever it thus yielded, there was power to the contra- 
ry ; otherwise there could be no freedom oi moral action." 
Now I beg leave to place my finger on the phrase in italics, 
and ask the editors what they mean by it. If they hold the 
common doctrines with regard to the relation of cause and 
effect, and with regard to power as connected with that rela- 
tion, and apply these to the acts of the will, I can see no 
more possibility of conceiving a power to the contrary in this 
case, than of conceiving such a power in the current of a 
river. But if they mean to assert the existence in the will of 
an actual power to rise above the demands of appetite, &c. 
above the law of nature, and to decide arbitrarily, whether 



40 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

to yield or not to yield, then they admit that the will ia not 
determined absolutely by the extraneous cause, but is in fact 
seZ/'-determined. They agree with the letter-writer ; and the 
question for them is at rest. Thus, whatever distinctions 
may be attempted here, there can be no real distinction but 
between an irresponsible nature and a will that is self-deter- 
mined. 

I cannot but be aware, that the views of the will here ex- 
hibited will meet with strong prejudices in a large portion, at 
least, of our religious community. I could wish that all such 
would carefully distinguish between the Author's views of the 
doctrines of religion, and the philosophical grounds on which 
he supposes those doctrines are to be defended. If no one 
disputes, and I trust no one will dispute, the substantial ortho- 
doxy of the Work, without first carefully examining what has 
been the orthodoxy of the Church in general, and of the great 
body of the Reformers, then I should hope it may be wisely 
considered, whether, as a question of philosophy, the meta- 
physical principles of this Work are not in themselves more 
in accordance with the doctrines of a spiritual religion, and 
better suited to their explanation and defence, than those 
above treated of. If on examination it cannot be disputed 
that they are, then, if not before, I trust the two systems may 
be compared without undue partiality, and the simple ques- 
tion of the truth of each may be determined by that calm 
and persevering reflection, which alone can determine ques- 
tions of this sort. 

If the system here taught be true, then it will follow, not, 
be it observed, that our religion is necessarily wrong, or our 
essential faith erroneous, but that the ■philosophical grounds. 
on which we are accustomed to defend our faith, are unsafe, 
and that their natural tendency is to error. If the spirit of 
ihe Gospel still exert its influence ; if a truly spiritual reli- 
gion-be maintained, it is in opposition to our philosophy, and 
not at all by its aid, I know it will be said, that the practi- 
cal results of our peculiar forms of doctrine are at variance 



PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 41 

with these remarks. But this I am not prepared to admit. 
True, religion and religious institutions have flourished ; the 
Gospel, in many parts of our country, lias been affectionate- 
ly and faithfully preached by great and good men ; the word 
and the Spirit of God have been communicated to us in rich 
abundance; and I rejoice, with heartfelt joy and thanksgiv- 
ing, in the belief, that thereby multitudes have been regene- 
rated to a new and spiritual life. But so were equal or grea- 
ter effects produced under the preaching of Baxter, and 
Howe, and other good and faithful men of the same age, 
wilh none of the peculiarities of our theological systems. 
Neither reason nor experience indeed furnish any ground for 
believing, that the living and life-giving power of the Divine 
Word has ever derived any portion of its efficacy, in the con- 
version of the heart to God, from the forms of metaphysical 
theology, with which the human understanding has invested 
it. It requires, moreover, but little knowledge of the histo- 
ry of philosophy, and of the writings of the 16th and 17th 
centuries to know, that the opinions of the Reformers and of 
all the great diyines of that period, on subjects of this sort, 
were far different from those of Mr. Locke and his followers, 
and were in fact essentially the same with those taught in 
this Work. This last remark applies not only to the views 
entertained by the eminent philosophers and divines of that 
period on the particular subject above discussed, but to the 
distinctions made, and the language employed, by them with 
reference to other points of no less importance in the consti- 
tution of our being. 

It must have been observed by the reader of the foregoing 
es, that I have used several words, especially understan- 
ding and reason, in a sense somewhat diverse from their 
present acceptation ; and the occasion of this I suppose 
would be partly understood from my having already directed 
the attention of the reader to the distinction exhibited be- 
tween these words in the Work, and from the remarks made 
on the ambiguity of the word ' reason 5 in iis common use. 
6 



42 



AIDS TO REFLECTION. 



I now proceed to remark, that the ambiguity spoken of, and 
the consequent perplexity in regard to the use and authority 
of reason have arisen from the habit of using, since the time 
of Locke, the terms understanding and reason indiscriminate- 
ly, and thus confounding a distinction clearly marked in the 
philosophy and in the language of the older writers. Alas ' 
had the terms only been confounded, or had we suffered only 
an inconvenient ambiguity of language, there would be com- 
paratively but little cause for earnestness upon the subject ; 
or had our views of the things signified by these terms been 
only partially confused, and had we still retained correct no- 
tions of our prerogative, as rational and spiritual beings, the 
consequences might have been less deplorable. But the mis- 
fortune is, that the powers of understanding and reason have 
not merely been blended and confounded in the view of our 
philosophy, the higher and far more characteristic, as an essen- 
tial constituent of our proper humanity, has been as it were 
obscured and hidden from our observation in the inferior 
power, which belongs to us in common with the brutes which 
perish. According to the old, the more spiritual, and genu- 
ine philosophy, the distinguishing attributes of our humani- 
ty — that image of God in which man alone was created of 
all the dwellers upon the earth, and in virtue of which he 
was placed at the head of this lower world, was said to be 
found in the reason and free-will. But understanding these 
in their strict and proper sense, and according to the true 
ideas of them, as contemplated by the older metaphysicians, 
we have literally, if the system of Locke and the popular 
philosophy of the day be true, neither the one nor the other 
ol these — neither reason nor free-will. What they esteemed 
the image of God in the soul, and considered as distinguish- 
ing us specifically, and so vastly too, above each and all of 
the irrational animals, is found, according to this system, to 
have in fact no real existence. The reality neither of the 
free-will, nor of any of those laws or ideas, which spring 
from, or rather constitute, reason, can be authenticated by 



PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 13 

the sort of proof which is demanded, and we must therefore 
relinquish our prerogative, and take our place with becoming 
humility among our more unpretending companions. In the 
ascending scries of powers, enumerated by Milton, with so 
much philosophical truth, as well as beauty of language, in 
the fifth book of Paradise Lost, he mentions 

Fancy and understanding, whence the soul 
Reason receives. And reason is her leing, 
Discursive or intuitive. 

But the highest power here, that winch is the being of the 
soid, considered as any thing differing in kind from the un- 
derstanding, has no place in our popular metaphysics. Thus 
we have only the understanding, " the faculty judging ac- 
cording to sense," a faculty of abstracting and generali- 
zing, of contrivance and forecast, as the highest of our in- 
tellecual powers ; and this we are expressly taught belongs 
to us in common with brutes. Nay, these views of our es- 
sential being, consequences and all, are adopted by men, 
whom one would suppose religion, if not philosophy, should 
Jiave taught their utter inadequateness to the true and essen- 
tial constituents of our humanity. Dr. Paley tells us in his 
Natural Theology, that only " contrivance," a power obvi- 
ously and confessedly belonging to brutes, is necessary to 
constitute personality. His whole system both of theology 
and morals neither teaches, nor implies, the existence of an) 
specific difference either between the understanding and rea- 
son, or between nature and the will, ft does not imply the 
existence of any power in man, which does not obviously 
belong in a greater or less degree to irrational animals. Dr. 
Fleming, another reverend prelate in the English Church, in 
his " Philosophy of Zoology," maintains in express terms, 
that we have no faculties differing in kind from those which 
belong to brutes. How many other learned, and reverend, 
and wise men adopt the same opinions. I know not : though 



44 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

these are obviously not the peculiar views of the individuals, 
but conclusions resulting' from the essential principles of their 
system. If, then, there is no better system, if this be the 
genuine philosophy, and founded in the nature of things, 
there is no help for us, and we must believe it — if we can. 
But most certainly it will follow, that we ought, as fast as the 
prejudices of education will permit, to rid ourselves of cer- 
tain notions of prerogative, and certain feelings of our own 
superiority, which somehow have been strangely prevalent 
among Our race. For though we have indeed, according to 
this system, a little More understanding than other animals — 
can abstract and generalize and forecast events, and the con- 
sequences of our actions, and compare motives more skilfully 
than they ; though we have thus more knowledge and can 
circumvent them ; though we have more power and can sub- 
due them ; yet, as to any distinctive and peculiar character- 
istic- — as to any inherent and essential worth, we are after all 
but little better — though we may be better off — than our dogs 
and horses. There is no essential difference, and we may ration- 
ally doubt — at least we might do so, if by the supposition we 
were rational beings — whether our fellow animals of the ken- 
nel and the stall are not unjustly deprived of certain perso- 
nal rights, and whether a dog charged with trespass may not 
rationally claim to be tried by a jury of his peers. Now 
however trifling and ridiculous this may appear, I would ask 
in truth and soberness, if it be not a fair and legitimate in- 
ference from the premises, and whether the absurdity of the 
one does not demonstrate the utter falsity of the other. And 
where, I would beg to know, shall we look, according to the 
popular system of philosophy, for that image of God in 
which we are created ? Is it a thing of degrees 1 and is it 
simply because we have something more of the same facul- 
ties which belong to brutes, that we become the objects of 
God's special and fatherly care, the distinguished objects of 
his Providence, and the sole objects of his Grace ? — Doth 
God take care for oxen 1 But why not ? 



PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 45 

I assure my readers, that T have no desire to treat with dis- 
respect and contumely the opinions of great or good men 
but the distinction in question, and the assertion and exhibi- 
tion of the higher prerogatives of reason, as an essential con- 
stituent of our being, are so vitally important, in my appre- 
hension, to the formation and support of any rational system 
of philosophy, and — no less than the distinction before trea- 
ted of — so pregnant of consequences to the interests of truth. 
in morals, and religion, and indeed of all truth, that mere 
opinion and the authority of names may well be disregarded. 
The discussion, moreover, relates to facts, and to such facts 
too, as are not to be learned from the instruction, or received 
on the authority, of any man. They must be ascertained by 
every man for himself, by reflection upon the processes and 
laws of his own inward being, or they are not learned at all 
to any valuable purpose. We do indeed find in ourselves 
then, as no one will deny, certain powers of intelligence, 
which we have abundant reason to believe the brutes possess 
in common with us in a greater or less degree. The functions 
of the understanding, as treated of in the popular systems of 
metaphysics, its faculties of attention, of abstraction, of gene- 
ralization, the power of forethought and contrivance, of adap- 
ting means to ends, and the law of association, may be, so 
far as we can judge, severally represented more or less ade- 
quately in the instinctive intelligence of the higher orders of 
brutes. But, not to anticipate too far a topic treated of in 
the Work, do these, or any and all the faculties which we 
discover in irrational animals, satisfactorily account to a re- 
flecting mind for all the phenomena which are presented to 
our observation in our own consciousness ? Would any sup- 
posable addition to the degree merely of those powers which 
we ascribe to brutes, render them rational beings, and remove 
the sacred distinction, which law and reason have sanctioned, 
between things and persons? Will any such addition ac- 
count for our having — what the brute is not supposed to 
have — the pure ideas of the geometrician, the power of ideal 



46 



AIDS TO REFLECTION. 



construction, the intuition of geometrical or other necessary 
and universal truths ? Would it give rise' in irrational ani- 
mals, to a law of moral rectitude and to conscience — to the 
feelings of moral responsibility and remorse ? Would it awa- 
ken them to a reflective self-consciousness, and lead them to 
form and contemplate the ideas of the soul, of free-will, of 
immortality, and of God. It seems to me. that we have 
only to reflect for a serious hour upon what we mean by these, 
and then to compare them with our notion of what belongs 
to a brute, its inherent powers and their correlative objects, 
to feel that they are utterly incompatible — that in the posses- 
sion of these we enjoy a prerogative, which we cannot dis- 
claim without a violation of reason, and a voluntary abase- 
ment of ourselves — and that we must therefore be possessed 
of some peculiar powers — of some source of ideas distinct 
from the understanding, differing in kind from any nnd all 
of those which belong to us in common with inferior and 
irrational animals. 

But what these powers are, or what is the precise nature 
of the distinction between the understanding and reason, it is 
not my province, nor have I undertaken, to show. My ob- 
ject is merely to illustrate its necessity, and the palpable ob- 
scurity, vagueness, and deficiency, in this respect, of the 
mode of philosophizing, which is held in so high honour 
among us. The distinction itself will be found illustrated 
with some of its important bearings in the Work, and in 
the notes attached to it ; and cannot be too carefully 
studied — in connexion with that between nature and the 
will — by the student who would acquire distinct and intelli- 
gible notions of what constitutes the truly spiritual in our be- 
ing, or find rational grounds for the possibility of a truly spi- 
ritual religion. Indeed, could I succeed in fixing the atten- 
tion of the reader upon this distinction, in such a way as to 
secure his candid and reflecting perusal of the Work, I should 
consider any personal effort or sacrifice abundantly recom- 
pensed. Nor am I alone in this view of its importance. A 



PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 47 

literary friend, whose opinion on this subject would be valued 

by all who know the soundness of his scholarship, says, in a 
letter just now received. — "if you can once get the atten- 
tion of thinking men fixed on his distinction between the 
reason and the understanding, you will have done enough to 
reward the labour of a life. As prominent a place as it holds 
in the writings of Coleridge, he seems to me far enough from 
making too much of it." No person of serious and philoso- 
phical mind, I am confident, can reflect upon the subject, 
enough to understand it in its various aspects, without arri- 
ving at the same views of the importance of the distinction, 
whatever may be his conviction with regard to its truth. 

But indeed the only grounds, which I find, to apprehend 
that the reality of the distinction and the importance of the 
consequences resulting from it, will be much longer denied 
and rejected among us, is in the overweening assurance, 
which prevails with regard to the adequateness and perfection 
of the system of philosophy which is already received. It 
is taken for granted, as a fact undisputed and indisputable, 
that this is the most enlightened age of the world, not only in 
regard to the more general diffusion of certain points of prac- 
tical knowledge ; in which, probably, it may be so, but in all 
respects ; that our whole system of the philosophy of mind, 
as derived from Lord Bacon especially, is the only one, 
which has any claims to common sense ; and that all distinc- 
tions not recognized in that are consequently unworthy of om 
regard. What those Reformers, to whose transcendant pow- 
ers of mind, and to whose characters as truly spiritual divines, 
we are accustomed to look with feelings of so much general 
regard, might find to say in favour of their philosophy, few 
take the pains to inquire. Neither the} nor the great philo- 
sophers with whom they held communion on subjects of this 
sort, can appear among us to speak in their own defence; 
and even the huge folios and quartos, in which, though dead, 
thej yel speak — and ought to be heard — have seldom strayed 
to this <!(!«■ .if the Atlantic. Al! our information respecting 



!- AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

their philosophical opinions, and the grounds on which they 
defended them, has been received from writers, who were 
confessedly advocating a system of recent growth, at open war 
with every tiling more ancient, and who, in the great abun- 
dance of their self-complacency, have represented their own 
discoveries as containing the sum and substance of all philo- 
sophy, and the accumulated treasures of ancient wisdom as 
unworthy the attention of " this enlightened age." Be it 
so — yet the foolishness of antiquity, if it be of God, may 
prove iciser than men. It may be found, that the philoso- 
phy of the Reformers and their religion are essentially con- 
nected, and must stand or fall together. It may at length 
be discovered, that a system of religion essentially spiritual, 
and a system of philosophy which excludes the very idea 
of all spiritual power and agency, in their only distinc- 
tive and proper character, cannot be consistently associated 
together. 

It is our peculiar misfortune in this country, that while the 
philosophy of Locke and the Scottish writers has been re- 
ceived in full faith, as the only rational system, and its leading 
principles especially passed off as unquestionable, the strong 
attachment to religion, and the fondness for speculation, by 
both of which we are strongly characterized, have led us to 
combine and associate these principles, such as they are, with 
our religious interests and opinions, so variously and so inti- 
mately, that by most persons they are considered as necessa- 
ry parts of the same system ; and from being so long contem- 
plated together, the rejection of one seems impossible without 
doing violence to the other. Yet how much evidence might 
not an impartial observer find in examining the theological 
discussions which have prevailed, the speculative systems, 
which have been formed and arrayed against each other, for 
the last seventy years, to convince him that there must be 
some discordance in the elements, some principle of secret 
but irreconcilable hostility between a philosophy and a reli- 
gion, which, under every ingenious variety of form and sha- 



I»KIX1M1NAKY ESSAY. 49 

ping, still stand aloof from each other, and refuse to cohere. 
For is it not a fact, that in regard to every speculative sys- 
tem which has been formed on these philosophical principles, 
— to every new shaping of theory which has been devised 
and has gained adherents among us, — is it not a fact, I ask, 
that, to all, except those adherents, the system — the philoso- 
phical theory — has seemed dangerous in its tendency, and 
at war with orthodox views of religion — perhaps even with 
the attributes of God. Nay, to bring the matter still nearer 
and more plainly to view, I ask, whether at this moment the 
organs and particular friends of our leading theological semi- 
naries in New England, both devotedly attached to an ortho- 
dox and spiritual system of religion, and expressing mutual 
confidence as to the essentials of their mutual faith, do not 
each consider the other as holding a philosophical theory sub- 
versive of orthodoxy ? If I am not misinformed, this is the 
simple fact. 

Now, if these things be so, I would ask again with all ear- 
nestness, and out of regard to the interests of truth alone, 
whether serious and reflecting men may not be permitted, 
without the charge of heresy in Religion, to stand in doubt 
of this Philosophy altogether ; whether these facts, which 
will not be disputed, do not furnish just grounds for suspi- 
cion that the principles of our philosophy may be erroneous, 
or at least induce us to look with candour and impartiality at 
the claims of another and a different system. 

What are the claims of the system, to which the attention 
of the public is invited in this Work, can be understood fully, 
only by a careful and reflecting examination of its principles 
in connexion with the conscious wants of our own inward 
being — the requirements of our own reason and consciences. 
Its purpose and tendency, I have endeavoured in some mea- 
sure to exhibit ; and if the influence of authority, which the 
prevailing system furnishes against it. can and must be coun- 
teracted by any thing of a like kind — (and whatever profes- 
sions we may make, the influence of authority produces at 



50 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

least a predisposing effect upon our minds) — the remarks 
which I have made, will show, that the principles here taught 
are not wholly unauthorized by men, whom we have been 
taught to reverence among the great and good. I cannot but 
add, as a matter of simple justice to the question, that how- 
ever our prevailing system of philosophizing may have ap- 
pealed to the authority of Lord Bacon, it needs but a candid 
examination of his writings, especially the first part of his 
Novum Organum, to be convinced, that such an appeal is 
without grounds ; and that in fact the fundamental principles 
of his philosophy are the same with those taught in this work, 
The great distinction, especially, between the understanding 
and the reason is clearly and fully recognized ; and as a phi- 
losopher he would be far more properly associated with Plato 
or even Aristotle, than with the modern philosophers, who 
have miscalled their systems by his name. In our own times, 
moreover, there is abundant evidence, whatever may be 
thought of the principles of this Work here, that the same 
general views of philosophy are regaining their ascendancy 
elsewhere. In Great Britain there are not a few, who begin 
to believe that the deep-toned and sublime eloquence of Cole- 
ridge on these great subjects may have something to claim 
their attention besides a few peculiarities of language. In 
Paris, the doctrines of a rational and spiritual system of phi- 
losophy are taught to listening and admiring thousands by one 
of the most learned and eloquent philosophers of the age ; 
and in Germany, if I mistake not, the same general views are 
adopted by the serious friends of religious truth among her 
great and learned men. 

Such — as I have no doubt — must be the case, wherever 
thinking men can be brought distinctly and impartially to ex- 
amine their claims ; and indeed, to those who shall study and 
comprehend the general history of philosophy, it must always 
be matter of special wonder, that in a Christian communi 
ty, anxiously striving to explain and defend the doctrines of 
Christianity in their spiritual sense, there should have been a 



PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 51 

loner-continued and tenacious adherence to philosophical prin- 
ciples, so subversive of their faith in every thing distinctively 
spiritual ; while those of an opposite tendency, and claiming 
a near relationship and correspondence with the truly spirit- 
ual in the Christian system, and the mysteries of its sublime 
faith, were looked upon with suspicion and jealousy, as un- 
intelligible or dangerous metaphysics. 

And here I must be allowed to add a few remarks with re- 
gard to the popular objections against the system of philoso- 
phy, the claims of which I am urging, especially against the 
writings of the Author, under whose name it appears in the 
present Work. These are various and often contradictory, 
but usually have reference either to his peculiarities of lan- 
guage, or to the depth — whether apparent or real, — and the 
unintelligibleness, of his thoughts. 

To the first of these it seems to me a sufficient answer, for 
a mind that would deal honestly and frankly by itself, to sug- 
gest that in the very nature of things it is impossible for a 
writer to express by a single word any truth, or to mark any 
distinction, not recognized in the language of his day, unless 
he adopts a word entirely new, or gives to one already in use 
a new and more peculiar sense. Now in communicating truths, 
which the writer deems of great and fundamental importance, 
shall he thus appropriate a single word old or new, or trust to 
the vagueness of perpetual circumlocution? Admitting for 
<\ample, the existence of the important distinction, for which 
this writer contends, between the understanding and reason, 
and that this distinction, when recognized at all, is confoun- 
ded in the common use of language by employing the words 
indiscriminately, shall he still use these words indiscriminate- 
ly, and either invent a new word, or mark the distinction by 
descriptive circumlocutions, or shall he assign a more distinc- 
tive and precise meaning to the words already used ? It 
seems to me obviously more in accordance with the laws and 
genius of language to take the course which he has adopted. 
But in this ease and in many others, where his language 



52 Alt»3 TO REFLECTION. 

seemS peculiar, it cannot be denied that the words had alrea- 
dy been employed in the same sense, and the same distinc- 
tions recognized, by the older and many of the most distin- 
guished writers in the language. 

With regard to the more important objection, that the 
thoughts of Coleridge are unintelligible; if it be intended to 
imply, that his language is not in itself expressive of an intel- 
ligible meaning, or that he affects the appearance of depth 
and fhystery, while his thoughts are common-place, it is an 
objection, which no one who has read his works attentively, 
and acquired a feeling of interest for them, will treat their 
Author with so much disrespect as to answer at all. Every 
such reader knows that he uses words uniformly with aston- 
ishing precision, and that language becomes, in his use of it — 
in a degree, of which few Writers can give us a conception — 
a living power, " consubstantial" with the power of thought, 
that gave birth to it, and awakening and calling into action a 
corresponding energy in our own minds. There is little en- 
couragement, moreover, to answer the objections of any man, 
who will permit himself to be incurably prejudiced against an 
Author by a few peculiarities of language, or an apparent 
difficulty of being understood, and without inquiring into the 
Cause of that difficulty, where at the same time he cannot but 
see and acknowledge the presence of great intellectual and 
moral power. 

But if it be intended by the objection to say simply, that 
the thoughts of the Author are often difficult to be appre- 
hended — that he makes large demands' not only upon the 
attention, but upon the reflecting and thinking powers, of his 
readers, the fact is not, and need not be, denied ; and it will 
only remain to be decided, whether the instruction offered, as 
the reward, will repay us for the expenditure of thought re- 
quired, or can be obtained for less. I know it is customary 
in this country, as well as in Great Britain — and that too 
among men from whom different language might be expec- 
ted — to affect either contempt or modesty, in regard to all 



PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 53 

that is more than common-place in philosophy, and especial- 
ly -"Coleridge's Metaphysics," as ''too deep lor them." 
Now it may not be every man's duty, or in every man's pow- 
er, to devote to such studies the time and thought necessary 
to understand the deep things of philosophy. But for one. 
who professes to be a scholar, and to cherish a manly love of 
truth for the truth's sake, to object to a system of metaphy- 
sics because it is " too deep for him," must be either a disin- 
genuous insinuation, that its depths are not worth exploring- — 
which is more than the objector knows — or a confession, 
that — -with all his professed love of truth and knowledge — 
he pefers to " sleep after dinner." The misfortune is, that 
men have been cheated into a belief, that all philosophy and 
metaphysics worth knowing are contained in a few volumes, 
which can be understood with little expense of thought ; and 
that they may very well spare themselves the vexation of try- 
ing to comprehend the depths of " Coleridge's Metaphysics." 
According to the popular notions of the day, it is a very easy 
matter to understand the philosophy of mind. A new work 
on philosophy is as easy to read as the last new novel ; and 
superficial, would-be scholars, who have a very sensible hor- 
ror at the thought of studying Algebra, or the doctrine of 
fluxions, can yet go through a course of moral sciences, and 
know all about the philosophy of the mind. 

Now why will not men of sense, and men who have any 
just pretensions to scholarship, see that there must of neces- 
sity be gross sophistry somewhere in any system of metaphy- 
sics, which pretends to give us an adequate and scientific 
self-knowledge — to render comprehensible to us the myste- 
rious laws of. our own inward being, with less manly and 
persevering effort of thought on our part, than is confessedly 
required to comprehend the simplest of those sciences, all of 
which are but some of the phcenomena, from which the laws 
in question are to be inferred ? — Why will they not see and 
acknowledge — what one would suppose a moment's reflec- 
tion would teach them — that to attain true self-knowledge by 



54 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

reflection upon the objects of our inward consciousness — 
not merely to understand the motives of our conduct as con- 
scientious Christians, but to know ourselves scientifically as 
philosophers — must, of necessity, be the most deep and dif- 
ficult of all our attainments in knowledge ? I trust that what 
I have already said will be sufficient to expose the absurdity 
of objections against metaphysics in general, and do some- 
thing towards showing, that we are in actual and urgent need 
of a system somewhat deeper than those, the contradictions 
of which have not without reason made the name of philoso- 
phy a terror to the friends of truth and of religion. " False 
metaphysics can be effectually counteracted by true metaphy- 
sics alone ; and if the reasoning be clear, solid, and perti- 
nent, the truth deduced can never be the less valuable on ac- 
count of the depth from which it may have been drawn." 
It is a fact, too, of great importance to be kept in mind, in 
relation to this subject, that in the study of ourselves — in at- 
taining a knowledge of our own being, — there are truths of 
vast concernment, and lying at a great depth, which yet no 
man can draw for another. However the depth may have 
been fathomed, and the same truth brought up by others, for 
a light and a joy to their own minds, it must still remain, and 
■be sought for by us, each for himself, at the bottom of the 
well. 

The system of philosophy here taught does not profess to 
make men philosophers, or — which ought to mean the same 
thing — to guide them to the knowledge of themselves, with- 
out the labour both of attention and of severe thinking. If 
it did so, it would have, like the more popular works of phi- 
losophy, far less affinity than it now has, with the mysteries of 
religion, and those profound truths concerning our spiritual 
being and destiny, which are revealed in the things hard to 
be understood, of St. Paul and of the beloved disciple. For 
I cannot but remind my readers again, that the Author does 
not undertake to teach us the philosophy of the human mind, 
with the exclusion of the truths and influences of religior. 



PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 55 

He would not undertake to philosophize respecting the being 

and character of man, and at the same time exclude from Ins 
view the very principle which constitutes his proper humani- 
ty : he would not, in teaching the doctrine of the solar sys- 
tem, omit to mention the sun, and the law of gravitation. 
He professes to investigate and unfold the being of man as 
man, in his higher, his peculiar, and distinguishing attributes. 
These it is, which are hard to be understood, and to ap 
prehend which requires deep reflection and exhausting 
thought. Nor in aiming at this object would he consider it 
very philosophical to reject the aid and instruction of emi- 
nent writers on the subject of religion, or even of the volume 
of Revelation itself. He would consider St. Augustine as 
none the less a philosopher, because he became a Christian. 
The Apostles John and Paul were, in the view of this sys- 
tem of philosophy, the most rational of all writers, and the 
New Testament the most philosophical of all books. They 
are so, because they unfold more fully, than any other, the 
true and essential principles of our being ; because they give 
us a clearer and deeper insight into those constituent laws of 
our humanity, which as men, and therefore as philosophers, 
we are most concerned to know. Not only to those, who 
seek the practical self-knowledge of the humble, spiritually 
minded, Christian, but to those also, who are impelled by the 
'* heaven descended yvu&i tiomoi" to study themselves as phi- 
losophers, and to make self-knowledge a science, the truths 
of Scripture are a light and a revelation. The more earnest- 
ly we reflect upon these and refer them, whether as Christians 
or as philosophers, to the movements of our inward being — 
to the laws which reveal themselves in our own consciousness, 
the more fully shall we understand, not only the language of 
Scripture, but all that most demands and excites the curiosity 
of the genuine philosopher in the mysterious character ot 
man. It is by this guiding light, that we can best search 
into and apprehend the constitution of that • marvellous mi- 
crocosm."' which, the more it has been known, has awakened 



56 AlllS TO REFLECTION. 

more deeply the wonder and admiration of the true philoso- 
pher in every age, 

Nor would the Author of this Work, or those who have 
imbibed the spirit of his system, join with the philosophers of 
the day in throwing aside and treating with a contempt, as 
ignorant as it is arrogant, the treasures of ancient wisdom. 
He, says the son of Sirach, that giveth his mind to the law 
of the Most High, and is occupied in the meditation thereof, 
will seek out the wisdom of all the ancient. In the estima- 
tion of the true philosopher, the case should not be greatly 
altered in the present day ; and now that two thousand years 
have added such rich and manifold abundance to those ancient 
'' sayings of the wise," he will still approach them with reve- 
rence, and receive their instruction with gladness of heart. 
In seeking to explore and unfold those deeper and more sol- 
emn mysteries of our being, which inspire us with awe, while 
they baffle our comprehension, lie will especially beware of 
trusting to his own understanding, or of contradicting, in 
compliance with the self-flattering inventions of a single age, 
the universal faith and conseiousness of the human race. On 
such subjects, though he would call no man master, yet nei- 
ther would he willingly forego the aids to be derived, in the 
search after truth, from those great oracles of human wis- 
dom — those giants in intellectual power, who from genera- 
tion to generation were admired and venerated by the great and 
good. Much less could he think it becoming, or consistent 
with his duty, to hazard the publication of his own thoughts 
on subjects of the deepest concernment, and on which minds 
of greatest depth and power had been occupied in former 
ages, while confessedly ignorant alike of their doctrines, and 
of the arguments by which they are sustained. 

It is in this spirit, that the Author, of the Work here offer- 
ed to the public has prepared himself to deserve the candid 
and even confiding attention of his leaders, with reference to 
the great subjects of which he treats. 

And although the claims of the Work upon our attention. 



PRELIMINARY ESSAT, 57 

as of every other work, must depend more upon its inherent 
and essential character, than upon the worth and authority 
of its Author, it may yet be of service to the reader to know, 
that he is no hasty or unfurnished adventurer in the depart- 
ment of authorship, to which the work belongs. The dis- 
criminating reader of this Work cannot fail to discover his 
profound knowledge of the philosophy of language, the prin- 
ciples of its construction, and the laws of its interpretation. 
In others of his works, perhaps more fully than in this, there 
is evidence of an unrivalled mastery over all that pertains 
both to logic and philology. It has been already intimated, 
that he is no contemner of the great writers of antiquity and 
of their wise sentences ; and probably few English scholars, 
even in those days when there were giants of learning in 
Great Britain, had minds more richly furnished with the 
treasures of ancient lore. But especially will the reader of 
this Work observe with admiration the profoundness of his 
philosophical attainments, and his thorough and intimate 
knowledge, not only of the works and systems of Plato and 
Aristotle, and of the celebrated philosophers of modern 
times, but of those too much neglected writings of the Greek 
and Roman Fathers and of the great leaders of the Refor- 
mation, which more particularly qualified him for discussing 
the subjects of the present Work. If these qualifications, 
and — with all these, and above all — a disposition professed 
and made evident seriously to value them, chiefly as they 
enable him more fully and clearly to apprehend and illustrate 
the truths of the Christian system. — if these, I say, can give 
an Author a claim to serious and thoughtful attention, then 
may the Work here offered urge its claim upon the reader. 
My own regard for the cause of truth, for the interests of 
philosophy, of reason, and of religion, lead me to hope that 
they may not be urged in vain. 

Of his general claims to our regard, whether from exalted 
personal and moral worth, or from the magnificence of his 
intellectual powers, and the vast extent and variety of his 



58 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

accumulated stores of knowledge, I shall not venture to 
speak. If it be true indeed that a really great mind can be 
worthily commended, only by those, who adequately both 
appreciate and comprehend its greatness, there are few who 
should undertake to estimate, and set forth in appropriate 
terms, the intellectual power and moral worth of Samuel 
Taylor Coleridge. Neither he, nor the public, would be bene- 
fitted by such commendations as I could bestow. The few 
among us who have read his works with the attention which 
they deserve, are at no loss what rank to assign him among 
the writers of the present age ; to those who have not, any 
language, which I might use, would appear hyperbolical and 
extravagant. The character and influence of his principles 
as a philosopher, a moralist, and a Christian, and of the 
writings by which he is enforcing them, do not ultimately 
depend upon the estimation in which they may now be held; 
and to posterity he may safely entrust those " productive 
ideas" and " living words" — those 

truths that wake, 



To perish never, 

the possession of which will be for their benefit, and connec- 
ted with which, in the language ol the Son of Sirach, — 
His own memorial shall not depart away, and his nmne shall 
live f rmn generation to generation. 

J. M. 



THE AUTHOR'S ADDRESS 
TO THE READER. 

Fellow-Christian ! the wish to be admired as a fine writer 
held a very subordinate place in my thoughts and feelings in 
the composition of this Volume. Let then its comparative 
merits and demerits, in respect of style and stimulancy, pos- 
sess a proportional Weight, and no more, in determining your 
judgment for or against its contents. Read it through : then 
compare the state of your mind, with the state in which your 
mind was, when you first opened the book. Has it led you 
to reflect ? Has it supplied or suggested fresh subjects for 
reflection ? Has it given you any new information ? Has it 
removed any obstacle to a lively conviction of your responsi- 
bility as a moral agent ? Has it solved any difficulties, which 
had impeded your faith as a Christian ? Lastly, has it in- 
creased your power of thinking connectedly — especially On 
the scheme and purpose of Redemption by Christ ? If it 
have done none of these things, condemn it aloud as worth- 
less : and strive to compensate for your own loss of time, by 
preventing others from wasting theirs. But if your conscience 
dictates an affirmative answer to all or any of the preceding 
questions, declare this too aloud, and endeavour to extend 
my utility. 



Ovtvjs ttuvtu nqli( iuvrlv Irtuyovaa, xul avrr^ooiauiri] ^'v/i,', avn; eig 
«rn/>, o'aiara x«i uaXa (ttftalois ituxaQiLnut. 



Omnis divin<e atque humana eruditionis elementa tria, Nosse, Velle, 
Posse ; quorum principium unum Mens ; cujus oculus Ratio ; cui lumen 
prcebet Deus. 

TICO. 



Jfaturam hominis hanc Deus ipse voluit, ut duarum rerum cupidus et ap- 
petens esset, religionis et sapientia. Sed homines ideo falluntur, quod aut 
rtligionem suscipiunt omissa sapientia ; aut sapientia soli student omissa 
••eligione ; cwn alterum sine altero esse non possit rerum. 

LACTANTIU9. 



THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 

An Author has three points to settle: to what sort his work 
belongs, for what description of readers it is intended, and 
the specific end or object, which it is to answer. There is 
indeed a preliminary question respecting the end which the 
writer himself has in view, whether the number of purcha- 
sers, or the benefit of the readers. But this may be safely 
passed by ; since where the book itself or the known princi- 
ples of the writer do not supersede the question, there will 
seldom be sufficient strength of character for good or for 
evil to afford much chance for its being either distinctly put 
or fairly answered. 

I shall proceed therefore to state as briefly as possible the 
intentions of the present volume in reference to the three 
first-mentioned points, namely, What ? For whom ? For 
what ? 

I. What ? The answer is contained in the title-page. It 
belongs to the class of didactic works. Consequently, those 
who neither wish instruction for themselves, nor assistarice in 
instructing others, have no interest in its contents. 

Sis sus, sis Divus : sum raltha, et non tibi spiro ' 

II. For whom ? Generally, for as many in all classes as 
wish for aid in disciplining their minds to habits of reflec- 
tion ; for all, who desirous of building up a manly character 
in the light of distinct consciousness, are content to study the 
principles of moral architecture on the several grounds of 
prudence, morality, and religion. And lastly, for all who 
feel an interest in the position which I have undertaken to 
defend, this, namely, that the Christian Faith is the perfec- 



62 PREFACE. 

tion of human intelligence, — an interest sufficiently strong 
to insure a patient attention to the arguments brought in its 
support. 

But if I am to mention any particular class or description 
of readers, who were prominent in my thought during the 
composition of the volume, my reply must be ; that it was 
especially designed for the studious young at the close of 
their education or on their first entrance into the duties of 
manhood and the rights of self-government. And of these, 
again, in thought and wish I destined the work (the latter 
and larger portion, at least) yet more particularly to students 
intended for the ministry ; first, as in duty bound, to the 
members of our Universities : secondly, (but only in respect 
of this mental precedency second) to all alike of whatev- 
er name who have dedicated their future lives to the cultiva- 
tion of their race, as pastors, preachers, missionaries, or in- 
structors of youth. 

III. For what? The worth of an author is estimated by 
the ends, the attainment of which he proposed to himself by 
the particular work ; while the value of the work depends 
on its fitness, as the means. The objects of the present vol- 
ume are the following, arranged in the order of their com- 
parative importance. 

I. To direct the reader's attention to the value of the 
science of words, their use and abuse, and the incalculable 
advantages attached to the habit of using them appropriate- 
ly, and with a distinct knowledge of their primary, deriva- 
tive, and metaphorical senses. And in furtherance of this 
object I have neglected no occasion of enforcing the maxim, 
that to expose a sophism and to detect the equivocal or double 
meaning of a word is, in the great majority of cases, one and 
the same thing. Home Tooke entitled his celebrated work, 
' E-ffsa tfTeposvra, winged words : or language not only the ve- 
hicle of thought but the wheels. With my convictions and 
views, for sV?a, I should substitute Xoyoi, that is, words select 
and determinate, and for tr-rspoivra £wovt£$;, that is, living words. 



PKEFACL. 63 

The wheels of the intellect I admit them to be : but such as 
Ezekiel beheld in the visions of God as he sate among the 
captives by the river of Chcbar. l\ "hit her soever the Spirit 
was to go, the wheels went, and thither was their Spirit to 
go : for the Spirit of the living creature ivas in the wheels 
also. 

2. To establish the distinct characters of prudence, mo- 
rality, and religion : and to impress the conviction, that 
though the second requires the first, and the third contains 
and supposes both the former ; yet still moral goodness is 
other and more than prudence or the principle of expedien- 
cy ; and religion more and higher than morality. For this 
distinction the better schools even of Pagan Philosophy 
contended. 

3. To substantiate and set forth at large the momentous 
distinction between reason and understanding. Whatever 
is achievable by the understanding for the purpose of world- 
ly interest, private or public, has in the present age been pur- 
sued with an activity and a success beyond all former expe- 
rience, and to an extent which equally demands my admira- 
tion and excites my wonder. But likewise it is, and long 
has been, my conviction, that in no age since the first dawn- 
ing of science and philosophy in this island have the truths, 
interests, and studies which especially belong to the reason, 
contemplative or practical, sunk into such utter neglect, not 
to say contempt, as during the last century. It is therefore 
one main object of this volume to establish the position, that 
whoever transfers to the understanding the primacy due to 
the reason, loses the one and spoils the other. 

4. To exhibit a full and consistent scheme of the Chris- 
tian Dispensation, and more largely of all the peculiar doc- 
trines of the Christian Faith ; and to answer all the objec- 
tions to the same, which do not originate in a corrupt will 
rather than an erring judgment ; and to do this in a manner 
intelligible for all who. possessing the ordinary advantages of 
education, do in good earnest desire to form their religious 



64 PREFACE. 

creed in the light of their own convictions, and to have a 
reason for the faith which they profess. There are indeed 
mysteries, in evidence of which no reasons can be brought. 
But it has been my endeavour to show, that the true solution 
of this problem is, that these mysteries are reason, reason in 
its highest form of self-affirmation. 

Such are the special objects of these Aids to Reflection. 
Concerning the general character of the work, let me be per- 
mitted to add the following sentences. St. Augustine, in one 
of his Sermons, discoursing on a high point of theology, tells 
his auditors — Sic accipite, ut mereamini intelligere. Fides 
enim debet prcecedere intellectum, ut sit intellect us fidei pra- 
mium. Now without a certain portion of gratuitous and (as 
it were) experimentative faith in the writer, a reader will 
scarcely give that degree of continued attention, without 
which no didactic work worth reading can be read to any 
wise or profitable purpose. In this sense, therefore, and to 
this extent, every author-, who is competent to the office he 
has undertaken, may without arrogance repeat St. Augus- 
tine's words in his own right, and advance a similar claim on 
similar grounds. But I venture no further than to imitate 
the sentiment at a humble distance, by avowing my belief 
that he, who seeks instruction in the following pages, will not 
fail to find entertainment likewise ; but that whoever seeks 
entertainment only will find neither. 

Reader ! — You have been bred in a land abounding with 
men, able in arts, learning, and knowledges manifold, this 
man in one, this in another, few in many, none in all. But 
there is one art, of which every man should be master, the 
art of reflection. If you are not a thinking man, to what 
purpose are you a man at all ? In like manner, there is one 
knowledge, which it is every man's interest and duty to ac- 
quire, namely self-knowledge : or to what end was man alone, 
of all animals, endued by the Creator with the faculty of 
self-consciousness ? Truly said the Pagan moralist, 

« cifIp rlp.trrnd't, rW5$i fX*«i;Toi 



PREFACE. 65 

But you are likewise born in a Christian land : and Reve- 
lation has provided for you new subjects for reflection, and 
new treasures of knowledge, never to be unlocked by him who 
remains self-ignorant. Self-knowledge is the key to this cas- 
ket ; and by reflection alone can it be obtained. Reflect on 
your own thoughts, actions, circumstances, and — which will 
be of especial aid to you in forming a habit of reflection, — 
accustom yourself to reflect on the words you use, hear, or 
read, their birth, derivation and history. For if words are 
not things, they are living powers, by which the things of 
most importance to mankind are actuated, combined, and 
humanized. Finally, by reflection you may draw from the 
fleeting facts of your worldly trade, art, or profession, a 
science permanent as your immortal soul ; and make even 
these subsidiary and preparative to the reception of spiritual 
truth, " doing as the dyers do, who having first dipt their 
silks in colours of less value, then give them the last tincture 
of crimson in grain." 



AIDS TO REFLECTION. 



INTRODUCTORY APHORISMS. 
APHORISM I. 

In philosophy equally as in poetry, it is the highest and most 
useful prerogative of genius to produce the strongest impres- 
sions of novelty, while it rescues admitted truths from the 
neglect caused by the very circumstance of their universal 
admission. Extremes meet. Truths, of all others the most 
awful and interesting, are too often considered as so true, 
that they lose all the power of truth, and lie bed-ridden in 
the dormitory of the soul, side by side with the most des- 
pised and exploded errors. 

APHORISM II. 

There is one sure way of giving freshness and importance 
to the most common-place maxims — that of reflecting on 
them in direct reference to our own state and conduct, to 
our own past and future being. 

APHORISM III 

To restore a common-place truth to its first uncommon 
lustre, you need only translate it into action. But to do this, 
you must have reflected on its truth. 

AI'IIORISM IV. 

LE1GHTON AND COLERIDGE. 

It is the advise of the wise man, - Dwell at ' home,' ' or, 
with yourself: and though there are very few that do this. 



68 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

\ 

yet it is surprising that the greatest part of mankind cannot 
be prevailed upon, at least to visit themselves sometimes ; 
but, according to the saying of the wise Solomon, The eyes 
of the fool are in the ends of the Earth.' 

A reflecting mind, says an ancient writer, is the spring and 
source of every good thing. (' Omnis boni principium in- 
tellectus cogitabundus.') It is at once the disgrace and the 
misery of men, that they live without fore-thought. Suppose 
yourself fronting a mirror. Now what the objects behind you 
are to their images at the same apparent distance before you, 
such is reflection to fore-thought. As a man without fore- 
thought scarcely deserves the name of a man, so fore-thought 
without reflection is but a metaphorical phrase for the in- 
stinct of a beast. 

APHORISM V. 

As a fruit-tree is more valuable than any one of its fruits 
singly, or even than all its fruits of a single season, so the 
noblest object of reflection is the mind itself, by which we 
reflect : 

And as the blossoms, the green, and the ripe, fruit of an 
orange-tree are more beautiful to behold when on the tree 
and seen as one with it, than the same growth detached and 
seen successively, after their importation into another country 
and different clime ; so it is with the manifold objects of re- 
flection, when they are considered principally in reference to 
the reflective power, and as part and parcel of the same. 
No object, of whatever value our passions may represent it, 
but becomes foreign to us as soon as it is altogether uncon- 
nected with our intellectual, moral, and spiritual life. To be 
ours, it must be referred to the mind, either as motive, or con- 
sequence, or symptom. 

APHORISM VI. 

LEIGHTOIf. 

He who teaches men the principles and precepts of spirit- 



INTRODUCTORY AfiMORISMS, C9 

ual wisdom, before their minds are called off from foreign ob- 
jects, and turned inward upon themselves, might as well write 
his instructions, as the Sybil wrote her prophecies, on the 
loose leaves of trees, and commit them to the mercy of the in- 
constant winds. 

APHORISM VII. 

In order to learn,, we must attend : in order to profit by 
what we have learnt, we must think — that is, reflect. Ho 
only thinks who reflects.* 

APHORISM VIII. 

LEIGHTON AND COLERIDGE. 

It is a matter of great difficulty, and requires no ordinary 
skill and address, to fix the attention of men on the world 
within them, to induce them to study the processes and super- 
intend the works which they are themselves carrying on |n 
their own minds ; in short, to awaken in them both the fa- 
culty of thoughtf and the inclination to exercise it. For alas ! 
the largest part of mankind are nowhere greater strangers 
than at home. 



* The indisposition, nay, the angry aversion to think, even in persons 
who are most willing to attend, and on the subjects to which they are giv- 
ing studious attention, as political economy, biblical theology, classical an- 
tiquities, and the like, — is the phenomenon that forces itself on my notice 
afresh, every time I enter into the society of persons in tha higher ranks. 
To assign a feeling and a determination of will, as a satisfactory reason for 
embracing or rejecting this or that opinion or belief, is of ordinary occur- 
rence, and sure to obtain the sympathy and the suffrages of the company. 
And yet to me this seems little less irrational than to apply the nose to a 
picture, and to decide on its genuineness by the sense of smell. 

t Distinction between thought and attention. — By thought is hero meant 
the voluntary reproduction in our minds of those states of consciousness, 
or (to use a phrase more familiar to the religious reader) of those inwa;d 
experiences, to which, as to his best and mo<,i authentic documents, the 
teacher of moral or religious truth refers us. In attention we keep the 
mind passive : in thought, we rouse it into activity. In the foimer, w* 
submit to an impression — we keep the mind steady, in order to receive the 
stamp. In the latter, we se.^k to imitate the artist, while we ourselves 



70 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

APHORISM IX. 

Life is the one universal soul, which by virtue of the en- 
livening Breath, and the informing Word, all organized bo- 
dies have in common, each after its kind. This, therefore, 
all animals possess, and man as an animal. But, in addition 
to this, God transfused into man a higher gift, and specially 
imbreathed : — even a living (that is self-subsisting) soul, a 
soul having its life in itself, ' And man became a living 
soul.' He did not merely possess it, he became it. It was 
his proper being, his truest self, the man in the man. None 
then, not one of human kind, so poor and destitute, but there 
is provided for him, even in this present state, a house not 
built with hands. Aye, and spite of the philosophy (falsely 
bo called) which mistakes the causes, the conditions, and the 
occasions of our becoming conscious of certain truths and 
realities for the truths and realities themselves — a house glo- 
riously furnished, Nothing is wanted but the eye, which is 
the light of this house, the light which is the eye of this soul. 
This seeing light, this enlightening eye, is reflection.* It is 
more, indeed, than is ordinarily meant by that word ; but it 
is what a Christian ought to mean by it, and to know too, 
whence it first came, and still continues to come — of what 
light even this light is but a reflection. This, too, is thought ; 
and all thought is but unthinking that does not flow out of 
this, or tend towards it. 

APHORISM X. 
Self-superintendence ! that any thing should overlook it- 
make a copy or duplicate of his work. We may learn arithmetic, or the 
elements of geometry, by continued attention alone; but self-knowledge, 
or an insight into the laws and constitution of the human mind and the 
grounds of religion and true morality, in addition to the effort of attention 
requires the energy of thought. 

" The dianoia of St. John, 1 Ep. v. 20, inaccurately rendered understan- 
ding in our translation. To exhibit the full force of the Greek word, w* 
must say, a power of discernment by reason. 



INTRODUCTORY APHORISMS. 



71 



self ! Is not this a paradox, and hard to understand ? It is, 
indeed, difficult, and to the imbruted sensualist a direct con- 
tradiction : and yet most truly does the poet exclaim, 

Unless above himself he can 

Erect himself, how mean a tiling is man ! 

APHORISM XI. 

An hour of solitude pased in sincere and earnest prayer, or 
the conflict with, and conquest over, a single passion or ' sub- 
tle bosom sin,' will teach us more of thought, will more ef- 
fectually awaken the faculty, and form the habit, of reflec- 
tion, than a year's study in the schools without them. 

APHORISM XII. 

In a world, the opinions of which are drawn from outside 
shows, many things may be paradoxical, (that is, contra- 
ry to the common notion) and nevertheless true : nay, be- 
cause they are true. How should it be otherwise, as long as 
the imagination of the worldling is wholly occupied by sur- 
faces, while the Christian's thoughts are fixed on the sub- 
stance, that which is and abides, and which, because it is the 
substance,* the outward senses cannot recognize. Tertul- 
lian had good reason for his assertion, that the simplest 
Christian (if indeed a Christian) knows more than the most 
accomplished irreligious philosopher. 

COMMENT. 

Let it not, however, be forgotten, that the powers of the 

* Quod stat svbtvs, that which stands beneath, and (as it were) supports, 
the appearance. In a language like ours, where so many words are de- 
rived from other languages, there are few modes of instruction more use- 
ful or more amusing than that of accustoming young people to seek for the 
etymology, or primary meaning of the words they use. There are cases, 
in which more knowledge of more value may be conveyed by the history 
of a word, than by the history of a campaign. 



1*2 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

understanding and the intellectual graces are precious gifts 
of God ; and that every Christian, according to the oppor- 
tunities vouchsafed to him, is bound to cultivate the one and 
to acquire the other. Indeed he is scarcely a Christian who 
wilfully neglects so to do. What says the apostle ? Add to 
your faith knowledge, and to knowledge manly energy, 
for this is the proper rendering of ap&rjv, and not virtue, at 
least in the present and ordinary acceptation of the word.* 

APHORISM XIII 

Never yet did there exist a full faith in the Divine Word 
(by whom light, as well as immortality, was brought into the 
world), which did not expand the intellect, while it purified 
the heart ; — which did not multiply the aims and objects of 
the understanding, while it fixed and simplified those of the 
desires and passions.f 

COMMENT. 

If acquiescence without insight ; if warmth without light ; 
if an immunity from doubt, given and guaranteed by a reso- 
lute ignorance ; if the habit of taking for granted the words 
of a catechism, remembered or forgotten ; if a mere sensation 

* I am not ashamed to confess that I di&Hke the frequent use of the word 
virtue, instead of righteousness, in the pulpit : and that in prayer or preach- 
ing before a Christian community, it sounds too much like pagan philoso- 
phy. The passage in St. Peter's epistle, is the only scripture authority 
that can be pretended for its use, and I think it right, therefore to notice, 
that it rests, either on an oversight of the translators, or on a change in 
the meaning of the word since that time. 

t The effects of a zealous ministry on the intellects and acquirement* 
of the labouring classes are not only attested by Baxter, and the Presby- 
terian divines, but admitted by Bishop Burnet, who, during his mission in 
the west of Scotland, was ' amazed to find the poor commonalty so able to 
argue,' &c. But we need not go to a sister church for proof or example. 
The diffusion of light and knowledge through this kingdom, by the exer- 
tions of the bishops and clerg3% by Episcopalians and Puritans, from 
Edward VI. to the Restoration, was as wonderful as it is praiseworthy, and 
■may be justly placed among the most remarkable facts of history. 



INTRODUCTORY APHORISMS. 73 

of positiveness substituted — I will not say for the sense of 
certainty, but — for that calm assurance, the very means and 
conditions of which it supersedes ; if a belief that seeks the 
darkness, and vet. strikes no root, immoveable as the limpet 
from the rock, and, like the limpet, fixed there by the mere 
force of adhesion ; — if these suffice to make men Christians, 
in what sense could the apostle affirm that believers receive, 
not indeed worldly wisdom, that comes to nought, but the 
wisdom of God, that we might know and comprehend the 
things that are freely given to us of God ? On what grounds 
could he denounce the sincerest fervour of spirit as defective, 
where it does not likewise bring forth fruits in the under- 
standing ? 

APHORISM XIV. 

In our present state, it is little less than impossible that the 
affections should be kept constant to an object which gives 
no employment to the understanding, and yet cannot be made 
manifest to the senses. The exercise of the reasoning and 
reflecting powers, increasing insight, and enlarging views, 
are requisite to keep alive the substantial faith in the 
heart. 

APHORISM XV. 

In the state of perfection, perhaps, all other faculties may 
be swallowed up in love, or superseded by immediate vision ; 
but it is on the wings of the cherubim, that is (according to 
the interpretation of the ancient Hebrew doctors), the intel- 
lectual powers and energies, that we must first be borne up to 
the ' pure empyrean.' It must be seraphs, and not the hearts 
of imperfect mortals, that can burn unfuelled and self-fed. 
Give me understanding (is the prayer of the royal Psalmist), 
and I shall observe thy law with my whole heart. — Thy law 
is exceeding broad — that is, comprehensive, pregnant, con- 
taining far more than the apparent import of the words on a 
first perusal. It is my meditation all the day. 
10 



74 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

COMMENT. 

It is worthy of especial observation, that the Scriptures are 
distinguished from all other writings pretending to inspiration, 
by the strong and frequent recommendations of knowledge, 
and a spirit of inquiry. Without reflection, it is evident that 
neither the one can be acquired nor the other exercised. 

APHORISM XVI. 

The word rational has been strangely abused of late times. 
This must not, however, disincline us to the weighty con- 
sideration, that thoughtfulness, and a desire to bottom all our 
convictions on grounds of right reason, are inseparable from 
the character of a Christian. 

APHORISM XVII. 

A reflecting mind is not a flower that grows wild, or comes 
up of its own accord. The difficulty is indeed greater than 
many, who mistake quick recollection for thought, are dis- 
posed to admit ; but how much less than it would be, had we 
not been born and bred in a Christian and Protestant land, 
few of us are sufficiently aware. Truly may we, and thank- 
fully ought we to, exclaim with the Psalmist : The entrance 
of thy 10 or ds giveth light ; it giveth understanding even to 
the simple. 

APHORISM XVIII. 

Examine the journals of our zealous missionaries, I will not 
say among the Hottentots or Esquimaux, but in the highly 
civilized, though fearfully uncultivated, inhabitants of ancient 
India. How often, and how feelingly, do they describe the 
difficulty of rendering the simplest chain of thought intelli- 
gible to the ordinary natives, the rapid exhaustion of their 
whole power of attention, and with what distressful effort it 
is exerted while it lasts ! Yet it is among these that the hide- 
ous practices of self-torture chiefly prevail. O if folly were 



INTRODUCTORY APHORISMS. 75 

no easier than wisdom, it being often so much more grievous, 
how certainly might these unhappy slaves of superstition be 
converted to Christianity ! But, alas ! to swing by hooks 
passed through the back, or to walk in shoes with nails of 
iron pointed upwards through the soles — all this is so much 
less difficult, demands so much less exertion of the will than 
to reflect, and by reflection to gain knowledge and tranquilli- 
ty! 

COMMENT. 

It is not true, that ignorant persons have no notion of the 
advantages of truth and knowledge. They confess, they see 
and bear witness to, these advantages in the conduct, the im- 
munities, and the superior powers of the possessors. Were 
they attainable by pilgrimages the most toilsome, or penan- 
ces the most painful, we should assuredly have as many pil- 
grims and self-tormenters in the service of true religion, as 
now exist under the tyranny of papal or Brahman supersti- 
tion. 

APHORISM XIX. 

In countries enlightened by the gospel, however, the most 
formidable and (it is to be feared) the most frequent impedi- 
ment to men's turning the mind inwards upon themselves, is 
that they are afraid of what they shall find there. There is 
an aching hollowness in the bosom, a dark cold speck at the 
heart, an obscure and boding sense of somewhat, that must 
be kept out of sight of the conscience ; some secret lodger, 
whom they can neither resolve to eject or retain.* 

* The following sonnet was extracted by me from Herbert's Temple, 
in a work long since out of print, for the purity of the language and the 
fulness of the sense. But I shall be excused, I trust, in repeating it here 
for higher merits and with higher purposes, as a forcible comment on the 
words in the text. 

Graces vouchsafed in a Christian land. 

Lord ! with what care hast thou begirt us round ! 
Parents first season us. Then schoolmaster* 



76 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

COMMENT. 

Few are so obdurate, few have sufficient strength of char- 
acter to be able to draw forth an evil tendency or immoral 
practice into distinct consciousness, without bringing it in the 
same moment before an awakening conscience. But for this 
very reason it becomes a duty of conscience to form the 
mind to a habit of distinct consciousness. An unreflecting 
Christian walks in twilight among snares and pitfalls ! He 
entreats the heavenly Father not to lead him into temptation, 
and yet places himself on the very edge of it, because he will 
not kindle the torch which his Father had given into his hands, 
as a mean of prevention, and lest he should pray too late. 

APHORISM XX. 

Among the various undertakings of men, can there be men- 
tioned one more important, can there be conceived one more 
sublime, than an intention to form the human mind anew af- 
ter the divine image ? The very intention, if it be sincere, 
is a ray of its dawning. 

The requisites for the execution of this high intent may 
be comprised under three heads ; the prudential, the moral, 
and the spiritual : 

APHORISM XXI. 

First, Religious Prudence. — What this is, will be best ex- 
plained by its effects and operations. Prudence consists in 

Deliver us to laws. They send us bound 
To rules of reason. Holy messengers ; 
Pulpits and Sundays ; sorrow dogging sin ; 
Afflictions sorted ; anguish of all sizes ; 
Fine nets and stratagems to catch us in ! 
Bibles laid open ; millions of surprises ; 
Blessings beforehand ; ties of gratefulness ; 
The sound of glory ringing in our ears : 
"Without, our shame, within, our consciences ; 
Angels and grace ; eternal hopes and fears ! 
Yet all these fences, and their whole array, 
One cunning- bosom sin blows quite away 



INTRODUCTORY APHORISMS. i t 

the service of religion, in the prevention or abatement of 
hindrances and distractions; and consequently in avoiding, 

or removing', all such circumstances as, by diverting the at- 
tention of the workman, retard the progress and hazard the 
safety of the work. It is likewise (I deny not) a part of this 
unworldly prudence, to place ourselves as much and as often 
as it is in our power so to do, in circumstances directly fa- 
vourable to our great design ; and to avail ourselves of all the 
positive helps and furtherances which these circumstances 
afford. But neither dare we, as Christians forget whose and 
under what dominion the things are. qua nos circumstant, 
that is, which stand around us. We are to remember, that 
it is the world that constitutes our outward circumstances ; 
that in the form of the world, which is evermore at variance 
with the divine form (or idea) they are cast and moulded ; 
and that of the means and measures which prudence requires 
in the forming anew of the divine image in the soul, the far 
greater number suppose the world at enmity with our design. 
We are to avoid its snares, to repel its attacks, to suspect its 
aids and succors, and even when compelled to receive them 
as allies within our trenches, yet to commit the outworks 
alone to their charge, and to keep them at a jealous distance 
from the citadel. The powers of the world are often chris- 
tened, but seldom christianized. They are but proselytes of 
the outer gate : or, like the Saxons of old, enter the land as 
auxiliaries, and remain in it as conquerors and lords. 

APHORISM XXII. 

The rules of prudence in general, like the laws, of the 
stone tables, are for the most part prohibitive. Thou shall 
not is their characteristic formula ; and it is an especial part 
of Christian prudence that it should be so. Nor would it be 
difficult to bring under this head, all the social obligations that 
arise out of the relations of the present life, which the sen- 
sual understanding (to (ppovnj/xa r/jcr capxo?, Romans viii. 6.) is of 
itself able to discover, and the performance of which, under 



78 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

favourable circumstances, the merest worldly self-interest, 
without love or faith, is sufficient to enforce ; but which 
Christian prudence enlivens by a higher principle, and ren- 
ders symbolic and sacramental. (Ephesians v. 32.) 

COMMENT. 

This then, under the appellation of prudential requisites, 
comes first under consideration : and may be regarded as the 
shrine and frame-work for the divine image, into which the 
worldly human is to be transformed. We are next to bring 
out the divine portrait itself, the distinct features of its coun- 
tenance, as a sojourner among men ; its benign aspect turned 
towards its fellow-pilgrims, the extended arm, and the hand 
that blesseth and healeth. 

APHORISM XXIII. 

The outward service (tlpr/tfxsia*) of ancient religion, the 
rites, ceremonies and ceremonial vestments of the old law, 
had morality for their substance. They were the letter, of 
which morality was the spirit ; the enigma, of which morali- 
ty was the meaning. But morality itself is the service and 

* See the epistle of St. James, c. i. v. 26, 27. where, in the authorized 
version, the Greek word SQijaxsia is falsely rendered religion: whether 
by mistake of the translator, or from the intended sense having become 
obsolete, 1 cannot decide. At all events, for the English reader of our 
times it has the effect of an erroneous translation. It not only obscures 
the connexion of the passage, and weakens the peculiar force and sublimi- 
ty of the thought, rendering it comparatively flat and trival, almost tauto- 
logical, but has occasioned this particular verse to be perverted into a sup- 
port of a very dangerous error; and the whole epistle to be considered as 
a set-off against the epistles and declarations of St. Paul, instead of (what 
in fact it is), a masterly comment and confirmation of the same. I need 
not inform the religious reader, that James, c. i. v. 27. is the favourite text 
and most boasted authority of those divines who represent the Redeemer 
of the world as little more than a moral reformer, and the Christain faith as 
a code of ethics, differing from the moral system of Moses and the proph- 
ets by an additional motive ; or rather, by the additional strength and clear- 
ness which the historical fact of the resurrection has given to this same 
motive. 



INTRODUCTORY APHORISMS. T9 

ceremonial (cult us exterior, flp^tfxeia) of the Christian religion. 
The scheme of grace and truth that became* through Jesus 
Christ, the faith that looksf down into the perfect law of 
liberty, has ' light for its garment ;' its very ' robe is right- 
eousness.' 

COMMENT. 

Herein the apostle places the pre-eminence, the peculiar 
and distinguishing excellence, of the Christian religion. The 

* The Greek word iyirtro, unites in itself the two senses of began to ex- 
ist and was made to exist. It exemplifies the force of the middle voice, in 
distinction from the verb reflex. In answer to a note on John i. 2. in the 
Unitarian version of the New Testament, I think il worth noticing, that 
the same word is used in the very same sense by Aristophanes in that fa- 
mous parody on the cosmogonies of the mythic poets, or the creation of the 
finite, as delivered, or supposed to be delivered, in the Cabiric or Samo 
thracian mysteries, in the Corned)' of the Birds. 

yivti Ouoarag '£2xiar6f it 



Kai r, 



t James, c. i. v. 25. ' O St nvtoaxCipas • '- vLitoi rD.noi roi :,c t).iv-$fola£. 
The Greek word, parakupsas, signifies the incurvation or bending of the 
body in the act of looking down into ; as, for instance, in the endeavour to 
see the reflected image of a star in the water at the bottom of a well. A 
more happy or forcible werd could not have been chosen to express the na 
ture and ultimate object of reflexion, and to enforce the necessity of it, in 
order to discover the living fountain and spring-head of the evidence of the 
Christian faith in the believer himself, and at the same time to point out the 
g sal and region, where alone it. is to be found. Quantum sumus, scimus. 
That which we find within ourselves, which is more than ourselves, and 
yet the ground of whatever is good and permanent therein, is the substance 
and life of all other knowledge. 

N. B. The Familists of the sixteenth century, and similar ethusiasts of 
later date, overlooked the essential point, that it was a law, and a law that 
involved its own end (rt'Aos), a perfeotlaw (rULtioc) or law that perfects or 
c implel ss itself; and therefore, its obligations are called, in reference to 
human statutes, imperfect duties, i. e. incoercible from without. They 
overlooked that it was a law that portions out (viftoqfrom rifiw to a'lot, or 
make division of) to each man the sphere and limits, within which it is to 
be exercised — which as St. Peter notices of certain profound passages in 
the writings of St. Paul, (2 Pet. c. iii. v. 16-) oi attufreti v.a\ aci',QixToi ?(?«(?- 
loveffv, w( xai r a : loinus ypawuc, r(jo, ? , > n'ui at ton or.i vti.ncer. 



80 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

ritual is of the same kind, (o^ooytfiov) though not of the same 
order, with the religion itself — not arbitrary or conventional, 
as types and hieroglyphics are in relation to the things ex- 
pressed by them ; but inseparable, consubstantiatcd (as it 
were), and partaking therefore of the same life, permanence, 
and intrinsic worth with its spirit and principle. 

APHORISM XXIV. 

Morality is the body, of which the faith in Christ is the 
soul — -so far indeed its earthly body, as it is adapted to its 
state of warfare on earth, and the appointed form and instru- 
ment of its communion with the present world ; yet not ' ter- 
restrial,'' nor of the world, but a celestial body, and capable 
of being transfigured from glory to glory, in accordance with 
the varying circumstances and outward relations of its mo- 
ving and informing spirit. 

APHORISM XXV. 

Woe to the man, who will believe neither power, freedom, 
nor morality, because he no where finds either entire, or un- 
mixed with sin, thraldom and infirmity. In the natural and 
intellectual realms, we distinguish what we can separate ; and 
in the moral world, we must distinguish in order to separate. 
Yea, in the clear distinction of good from evil the process of 
separation commences. 

COMMENT. 

It was customary with religious men in former times, to 
make a rule of taking every morning some text, or apho- 
rism,* for their occasional meditation during the day, and 

* In accordance with a preceding remark, on the use of etymology in 
disciplining the youthful mind to thoughtful habits, and as consistent with 
the title of this work, ' Aids to Reflection,' I shall offer no apology for 
the following and similar notes : 

Aphorism, determinate position, from the Greek up, from ; and horizein, 
to bound or limit; whence our horizon. — in order to get the full sense of 



INTRODUCTORY APHORISMS. 81 

thus to fill up the intervals of their attention to business. J 
do not point it out for imitation, as knowing too well, how 
apt these self-imposed rules are to degenerate into supersti- 
tion or hollow ness : otherwise I would have recommended 
the following as the first exercise. 

ABHORISM XXVI. 

ft is a dull and obtuse mind, that must divide in order to 
distinguish ; but it is a still worse, that distinguishes in order 
to divide. In the former we may contemplate the source of 
superstition and idolatry ;* in the latter of schism, heresy ,f 
and a seditious and sectarian spirit.t- 

APHORISM XXVII 

Exclusively of the abstract sciences, the largest and wor- 
thiest portion of our knowledge consists of aphorisms : and 
the greatest and best of men is but an aphorism. 

a word, we should first present to our minds the visual image that forms its 
primary meaning. Draw lines of different colours round the different 
counties of England, and then cut out each separately, as in the common 
play-maps that children take to pieces and put together— so that each dis- 
trict can be contemplated apart from the rest, as a whole in itself. This 
twofold act of circumscribing, and detaching, when it is exerted by the 
mind on subjects of reflection and reason, is to aphorize, and the result an 
aphorism. 

* To rotjTov SirjQijxaOtv elg no/LXwv , c n<-:< iSmxt\raq. — Damasc. dc Myst. 
Egypt; that is, They divided the intelligible into many and several indi- 
vidualities. 

t From ai'oeaig. Though well aware of its formal and apparent deriva- 
tion from haireo, I am inclined to refer both words to airo, as the primitive 
term, containing the primary visual image, and therefore should explain 
hceresis as a wilful raising into public notice, uplifting (for display) of any 
particular opinion differing from the established belief of the church at large, 
and making it a ground of schism, that is division. 

j I mean these words in their large and philosophic sense in relation to 
the spirit, or originating temper and tendency, and not to any one mode 
under which, or to any one class, in or by which it may be displayed. A 
seditious spirit may (it is possible, though not probable), exist in the coun- 
cil-chamber of a palace as strongly as in a mob in'Palace-Yard ; and a sec- 
tarinn spirit in a cathedral, no lesn than in n conventicle. 
11 



8'2 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

APHORISM XXVIII. 

On the prudenti:il influence which the fear or foresight of the conse- 
quences of his actions, in respect of his own los3 or gain, may exert on a 
newly converted believer. 

Precautionary remark. — I meddle not with the dispute 
respecting conversion, whether, and in what sense, necessary 
in all Christians. It is sufficient for my purpose, that a very 
large number of men, even in Christian countries, need to 
be converted, and that not a few, I trust, have been. The 
tenet becomes fanatical and dangerous, only when rare and 
extraordinary exceptions are made to be the general rule ; — 
when what was vouchsafed to the apostle of the Gentiles by 
especial grace, and for an especial purpose, namely, a con- 
version* begun and completed in the same moment, is de- 
manded or expected of all men, as a necessary sign and 
pledge of their election. Late observations have shown, that 
under many circumstances the magnetic needle, even after 
the disturbing influence has been removed, will keep waver- 
ing and require many days before it points aright, and re- 
mains steady to the pole. So is it ordinarily with the soul, 
after it has begun to free itself from the disturbing forces of 
the flesh, and the world, and to convertf itself towards God. 

APHORISM XXIX. 

Awakened by the cock-crow (a sermon, a calamity, a sick 
bed, or a providential escape) the Christian pilgrim sets out 
in the morning twilight, while yet the truth (the vo/xog <rk\eios o 

* Whereas Christ's other disciples had a breeding under him, St. Paul 
was born an apostle ; not carved out, as the rest, by degrees and in course 
of time, but a fusile apostle, an apostle poured out and cast in a mould. 
As Adam was a perfect man in an instant, so was St. Paul a perfect Chris- 
tian. The same spirit was the lightning that melted, and the mould that 
received and shaped him. — Donne's Sermons — quoted from memory. 

t From the Latin, convcrterc, that is, by an act of the will to turn tow- 
ards the true pole, at the same time (for this is the force of the prepositive 
eon.) that, the understanding is convinced and made aware of its existence 
and direction. 



INTRODUCTORY APHORISMS. 83 

*% sXeuSepias) is below the horizon. Certain necessary conse- 
quences of his past life and his present undertaking will be 
seen by the refraction of itslighl : more will be apprehended 
and conjectured. The phantasms, that had predominated 
during the hours of darkness, are still busy. Though they 
no longer present themselves as distinct forms, they yet re- 
main as formative notions in the pilgrim's soul, unconscious 
of its own activity and over-mastered by its own workman- 
ship. Things take the signature of thought. The shapes 
of the recent dream become a mould for the objects in the 
distance, and these again give an outwardness and sensation 
of reality to the shapings of the dream. The bodings in- 
spired by the long habit of selfishness, and self-seeking cun- 
ning, though they are now commencing the process of their 
purification into that fear which is the beginning of wisdom, 
and which, as such, is ordained to be our guide and safe- 
guard, till the sun of love, the perfect law of liberty, is fully 
arisen — these bodings will set the fancy at work, and hap- 
ly, for a time, transform the mists of dim and imperfect know- 
ledge into determinate superstitions. But in either case, 
whether seen clearly or dimly, whether beholden or only ima- 
gined, the consequences contemplated in their bearings on 
the individual's inherent* desire of happiness and dread of 

* The following extract from Leighton's Theological Lectures, sect. II. 
may serve as a comment on this sentence : 

' The human mind, however stunned and weakened by the Fall, still re- 
tains some faint idea of the good it has lost; a kind of languid sense of its 
misery and indigence, with affection-; suitable to these obscure notions. 
This at least is beyond all douht and indisputable, thai all men wish well 
to themselves ; nor can the mind divest itself of this propensity, withoul 
divesting itself of its being. This is what the schoolmen mean when in 
their manner of expression they say, that ' tithe will (voluntas, not arbitri- 
vm) is carried towards happiness not simply as will, but as nature." ' 

I venture to remark that this position, if not more certainly, would lie 
more evidently true, if instead of bcatitudo, the word indolentia (that is, 
freedom from pain, negative happiness) had been used. Bu1 this depends 
on the exact meaning attached to the term self, of which more mi another 
place. One conclusion, however, follows inevitably from the preceding 
position, namclv, that this propensity can never be legitimately made the 



84 



AIDS TO KKFLECTION. 



pain become motives ; and (unless all distinction in the words 
be done away with, and either prudence or virtue be reduced 
to a superfluous synonyme, a redundancy in all the languages 
of the civilized world), these motives, and the acts and for- 
bearances directly proceeding from them, fall under the head 
of prudence, as belonging to one or other of its three very 
distinct species. 

I. It may be a prudence, that stands in opposition to a 
higher moral life, and tends to preclude it, and to prevent 
the soul from ever arriving at the hatred of sin for its own 
exceeding sinfulness (Rom. vii. 13) : and this is an evil pru- 
dence. 

II. Or it may be a neutral prudence, not incompatible with 
spiritual growth : and to this we may, with especial proprie- 
ty, apply the words of our Lord, What is not against us is 
for us. It is therefore an innocent, and (being such) a pro- 
per, and commendable prudence. 

III. Or it may lead and be subservient to a higher princi- 
ple than itself. The mind and conscience of the individual 
may be reconciled to it, in the fore-knowledge of the higher 
principle, and with yearning towards it that implies a fore- 
taste of future freedom. The enfeebled convalescent is re- 
conciled to his crutches, and thankfully makes use of them, 
not only because they are necessary for his immediate sup- 
port, but likewise, because they are the means and conditions 
of exercise, and by exercise, of establishing, gradatim pau- 
latim, the strength, flexibility, and almost spontaneous obe- 
dience of the muscles, which the idea and cheering presenti- 
ment of health hold out to him. He finds their value in 



principle of morality, even because it is do part or appurtenance of the 
moral will ; and because the proper object of the moral principle is to limit 
and control this propensity, and to determine in what it may be, and in what 
it ought to be, gratified ; while it is the business of philosoph}' to instruct 
the understanding, and the office of religion to convince the whole man, 
that otherwise than as a regulated, and of course therefore a subordinate, 
end, this propensity, innate and inalienable though it be, can never be real : 
ized or fulfilled. 



INTRODUCTORY APHORISMS. 65 

their present necessity, and their worth as they arc the in- 
struments of finally superseding it. This is a faithful, a wise 
prudence, having, indeed, its birth-place in the world, and 
the wisdom of this world for its father ; but naturalized in a 
better land, and having the wisdom from above for its spon- 
sor and spiritual parent. To steal a dropt feather from the 
spicy nest of the phcenix, (the fond humour, I mean, of the 
mystic divines and allegorizers of holy writ) it is the son of 
Terah from Ur of the Chaldees, who gives a tithe of all to 
the King of Righteousness, without father, without mother, 
without descent; (vo/xos au-ovo,uos), and receives a blessing on 
the remainder. 

IV. Lastly, there is a prudence that co-exists with morali- 
ty, as morality co-exists with the spiritual life : a prudence 
that is the organ of both, as the understanding is to the rea- 
son and the will, or as the lungs are to the heart and brain. 
This is a holy prudence, the steward faithful and discreet 
(bixovo,aos nig-oc; Kal <p ( o6viao.c, Luke xii. 42), the eldest servant in 
the family of faith, born in the house, and made the rider 
over his lord's household. 

Let not then, I entreat you, my purpose be misunderstood; 
as if, in distinguishing virtue from prudence, I wished to di- 
vide the one from the other. True morality is hostile to that 
prudence only, which is preclusive of true morality. The 
teacher, who subordinates prudence to virtue, cannot be sup- 
posed to dispense with virtue ; and he, who teaches the pro- 
per connexion of the one with the other, does not depreciate 
the lower in any sense ; while by making it a link of the 
same chain with the higher, and receiving the same influence, 
he raises it. 

In general, morality may be compared to the consonant ; 
prudence to the vowel. The former can not be uttered (re- 
duced to practice) but by means of the latter. 

APHORISM XXX. 

What the duties of morality are, the apostle instructs the 



a6 



AIDS TO HEFLECTIOr*. 



believer in full, comprising them under the two heads of ne- 
gative and positive ; negative, to keep himself pure from the 
world ; and positive, beneficence from loving-kindness, that 
is, love of his fellow-men (his kind) as himself. 

APHORISM XXXI. 

Last and highest come the spiritual, comprising all the 
truths, acts, and duties, that have an especial reference to the 
timeless, the permanent, the eternal, to the sincere love of 
the true, as truth, of the good, as good : and of God as both 
in one. It comprehends the whole ascent from uprightness 
(morality, virtue, inward rectitude) to godlikeness, with all 
the acts, exercises, and disciplines of mind, will, and affection, 
that are requisite or conducive to the great design of our re- 
demption from the form of the evil one, and of our second 
creation or birth in the divine image.* 

* It is worthy of observation, and may furnish a fruitful subject for future 
reflection, how nearly this scriptural division coincides with the Platonic, 
which, commencing- with the prudential, or the habit of act and purpose 
proceeding from enlightened self-interest, [qui animi impcrio, corporis ser- 
vitio, rcrum anxilio, in proprium siii commodum et sibi providus utitur,hune 
esse prudentem statuimus], ascends to the moral, that is, to the purifying 
and remedial virtues; and seeks its summit in the imitation of the divine 
nature. In this last division, answering to that which we have called the 
spiritual, Plato includes all those inward acts and aspirations, writings, and 
watchings, which have a growth in godlikeness for their immediate purpose, 
and the union of the human soul with the supreme good as their ultimate 
object. Nor was it altogether without grounds that several of the Fathers 
ventured to believe that Plato had some dim conception of the necessity of 
a divine mediator, whether through some indistinct echo of the patriarchal 
faith, or some rays of light refracted from the Hebrew prophets through a 
Phoenician medium (to which he may possibly have referred in his phrase, 
SteonaQaduTog ooipia, the wisdom delivered from God), or by his own sense 
of the mysterious contradiction in human nature between the will and the 
reason, the natural appetences and the not less innate law of conscience 
(Romans ii. 14, 15), we shall in vain attempt to determine. Ii is not impos- 
sible that all three may have co-operated in partially unveiling these awful 
truths to this plank from the wreck of paradise thrown on the shores of 
idolatrous Greece, to this divine philosopher, 

Che in quella schiera ando piu presso al segno 

Al qual aggiunge, a chi dalcielo e dato. 

Petrarch. Del Trionfo dclla Fmna, rnp. iii. 1. 5. (S 



INTRODUCTORY APHORISMS. S7 

APHORISM XXXII. 

It may be an additional aid to reflection, to distinguish the 
three kinds severally, according to the faculty to which each 
corresponds, the part of our human nature which is more par- 
ticularly its organ. Thus : the prudential corresponds to the 
sense and the understanding: the moral to the heart and tho 
conscience ; the spiritual to the will and the reason, that is 
to the finite will reduced to harmony with, and in subordina- 
tion to, the reason, as a ray from that true light which is both 
reason and will, universal reason, and will absolute. 



REFLECTIONS 

INTRODUCTORY TO 

MORAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. 

ON SENSIBILITY. 

Ir prudence, though practically inseparable from morality, is 
not to be confounded with the moral principle ; still less may 
sensibility, that is, a constitutional quickness of sympathy 
with pain and pleasure, and a keen sense of the gratifica- 
tions that accompany social intercourse, mutual endearments, 
and reciprocal preferences, be mistaken, or deemed a substi- 
tute, for either. Sensibility is not even a sure pledge of a 
good heart, though among the most common meanings of 
that many-meaning and too commonly misapplied expression. 

So far from being either morality, or one with the moral 
principle, it ought not even to be placed in the same rank 
with prudence. For prudence is at least an offspring of the 
understanding ; but sensibility (the sensibility, I mean, here 
spoken of), is for the greater part a quality of the nerves, 
and a result of individual bodily temperament. 

Prudence is an active principle, and implies a sacrifice of 
self, though only to the same self projected, as it were, to a 
distance. But the very term sensibility, marks its passive 
nature ; and in its mere self, apart from choice and reflec- 
tion, it proves little more than the coincidence or contagion 
of pleasurable or painful sensations in different persons. 

Alas ! how many are there in this over-stimulated age, in 
which the occurrence of excessive and unhealthy sensitive- 
ness is so frequent, as even to have reversed the current mea- 



SENSIBILITY. 



89 



ning of the woid, nervous. How many are there whose 
sensibility prompts them to remove those evils alone, which 
by hideous spectacle or clamorous outcry are present to their 
senses and disturb their selfish enjoyments. Provided the 
dunghill is not before their parlour window, they are conten- 
ted to know that it exists, and perhaps as the hotbed on 
which their own luxuries are reared. Sensibility is not ne- 
cessarily benevolence. Nay, by rendering us tremblingly 
alive to trifling misfortunes, it frequently prevents it, and in- 
duces an effeminate selfishness instead, 

pampering the coward heart 



With feelings all too delicate for use. 

Sweet are the tears, that from a Howard's eye 

Drop on the cheefe of one, he lifts from earth : 

And he, that works me good with unmoved face, 

Does it but half, lie chills me, while he aids, 

My benefactor, not my brother man. 

But even this, this cold benevolence, 

Seems worth, seems manhood, when there rise before me 

The sluggard pity's vision-weaving 

Who sigh for wretchedness, yet shun the wretched. 

Nursing in some delicious solitude 

Their slothful loves and dainty sympathies. 

Lastly, where virtue is, sensibility is the ornament and be- 
coming attire of virtue. On certain occasions it may almost 
be said to become* virtue. But sensibility and all the amia- 
ble qualities may likewise become, and too often have be- 
come, the pandnrs of vice, and the instruments of seduc- 
tion. 

So must it needs be with all qualities that have their rise 

* There sometimes occurs an apparent play on words, which not only to 
the moralizer, but even to the philosop pe&rs mor< 

a mere play. Thus in the double sense of the v. ! h Lve known 

persons so anxious to have their drees '. tn, as to convert it at 

length into their proper self, and thus actually to become the dress. Such 
a one, (safeliesl spoken " : ' bj the neuter pronoun), I c< nsider as hut i 
of live finery. It is indifferent whether we say— it becomes lie, or, ho be- 
comes it. 

\1 



90 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

only in parts and fragments of our nature. A man of warm 
passions may sacrifice half his estate to rescue a friend from 
prison : for he is naturally sympathetic, and the more social 
part of his nature happened to be uppermost. The same 
man shall afterwards exhibit the same disregard of money in 
an attempt to seduce that friend's wife or daughter. 

All the evil achieved by Hobbes and the whole school of 
materialists will appear inconsiderable if it be compared with 
the mischief effected and occasioned by the sentimental phi- 
losophy of Sterne, and his numerous imitators. The vilest 
appetites and the most remorseless inconstancy towards their 
objects, acquired the titles of the heart, the irresistible feel- 
ings, the too tender sensibility : and if the frosts of pru- 
dence, the icy chains of human law thawed and vanished at 
the genial warmth of human nature, who could help it ? It 
was an amiable weakness ! 

About this time, too, the profanation of the word. Love, 
rose to its height. The French naturalists, Buffon and oth- 
ers, borrowed it from the sentimental novelists : the Swedish 
and English philosophers took the contagion ; and the muse 
of science condescended to seek admission into the saloons 
of fashion and frivolity, rouged like a harlot, and with the 
harlot's wanton leer. I know not how the annals of guilt 
could be better forced into the service of virtue, than by such 
a comment on the present paragraph, as would be afforded 
by a selection from the sentimental correspondence produced 
in courts of justice within the last thirty years, fairly transla- 
ted into the true meaning of the words, and the actual ob- 
ject and purpose of the infamous writers. 

Do you in good earnest aim at dignity of character? By 
all the treasures of a peaceful mind, by all the charms of an 
open countenance, I conjure you. O youth ! turn away from 
those who live in the twilight between vice and virtue. Are 
not reason, discrimination, law, and deliberate choice, the 
distinguishing characters of humanity ? Can aught then 
worthy of a human being proceed from a habit of soul, 



SLNSIBU.ITT. 



91 



which would exclude all these and (to borrow a metaphor 
from paganism) prefer the den of Trophonus to the temple 
and oracles of the God of light ? Can any thing manly, I 
say, proceed from those, who for law and light would substi- 
tute shapeless feelings, sentiments, impulses, which as far as 
they differ from the vital workings in the brute animals owe 
the difference fo their former connexion with the proper vir- 
tues of humanity ; as dendrites derive the outlines, that con- 
stitute their value above other clay-stones, from the casual 
neighbourhood and pressure of the plants, the names of which 
they assume ! Remember, that love itself in its highest 
earthly bearing, as the ground of the marriage union,* be- 

*Itmight'bea mean of preventing many unhappy marriages, if the youth 
of both sexes had it early impressed on their minds, that marriage contrac- 
ted between I !hr ians isa true and perfect symbol or mystery ; that is, the 
actualizing faith being supposed to exist in the receivers, it is an outward 
sign co-essential with that which it signifies, or a living part of that, the 
whole of which it represents. Marriage therefore, in the Christain sense 
(Ephesitms v. 22 — 33), as symbolical of the union of the soul with Christ 
the Mediator, and with God through Christ, is perfectly a sacramental ordi- 
nance, and not retained by the reformed churchesag one of the sacraments, 
for two reasons; first, that the sign is not distinctive of the church of Christ, 
and the ordinance not peculiar, nor owing its origin to the Gospel dispen- 
sation ; secondly, that it is not of universal obligation, nor a means of grace 
enjoined on all Christians. In other and plainer words, marriage does not 
contain in itself an open profession of Christ, and it is not a sacrament of 
the church, but only of certain individual members of the church. It is 
evident, however, that neither of these reasons affect or diminish the reli- 
gious nature and dedicative force of the marriage vow, or detract from the 
solemnity in the apostolic declaration : This is a great mystery. 

The interest, which the state has in the appropriation of one woman to 
one man, and the civil obligation i therefrom resulting, form an altogether 
distinct consideration. When I meditate on the words <>(' the apostle, con- 
firmed and illustrated as thej are, by so many harmonies in the spiritual 
structure of our proper humanity, (in the image of God, male and female 
created he the man), and then reflect how little claim so large a number of 
legal cohabitations have to the name of Christian marriages — 1 feed inclined 
to doubt, whether the plan of celebrating marriages universally by the civil 
magistrate, in the firsl instance, and leaving the religious covenant, and 
sacramental pledge to the el< ction of the parties themselves, adopted during 
the republic in England, and in our own times by the French legislature, 
was not. in fact, whatever it might ht> in intention, rpverential to Christian!- 



92 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

comes love by an inward fiat of the will, by a completing and 
sealing act of moral election, and lays claim to permanence 
only under the form of duty. 

ty. At all events, it was their own act and choice, if the parties made bad 
worse by the profanation of a Gospel mystery. 



PRUDENTIAL APHORISMS 



APHORISM I. 

LEJGHTON AND COLERIDGE. 

With respect to any final aim or end, the greater part of 
mankind live at hazard. They have no certain harbour in 
view, nor direct their course by any fixed star. But to him 
that knoweth not the port to which he is bound, no wind can 
be favourable ; neither can he who has not yet determined at 
what mark he is to shoot, direct his arrow aright. 

It is not, however, the less true that there is a proper ob- 
ject to aim at ; and if this object be meant by the term hap- 
piness, (though I think that not the most appropriate term 
for a state, the perfection of which consists in the exclusion 
of all hap, that is, chance), I assert that there is such a thing 
as human happiness, as summum bnnum, or ultimate good. 
What this is, the Bible shows clearly and certainly, and points 
out the way that leads to the attainment of it. This is that 
which prevailed with St. Augustine to study the Scriptures, 
and engaged his affection to them. ' In Cicero, and Plato, 
and other such writers,' says he, ' I meet with many things 
acutely said, and things that excite a certain warmth of emo- 
tion, but in none of them do I find these words, Come unto 
me, all ye that labour, and are heavy laden, and I will give 
you rest.'* 

COMMENT. 

Felicity, in its proper sense, is but another word for fortu- 

Ipud Ciccronem et Platonem, aliosque ejusmodi scriptores, multa sunt 
ncute dicta, it leniter calentia, se d in iis omnibus hoc non invenio, Venite nri 
me, 8,-c. [Matt, xii. 28], 



94 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

nateness, <?r happiness; and I can see no advantage in the 
improper use of words, when proper terms are to be found, 
but. on the contrary, much mischief. For, by familiarizing 
the mind to equivocal expressions, that is, such as may be 
taken in two or more different meanings, we introduce con- 
fusion of thought, and furnish the sophist with his best and 
handiest tools. For the juggle of sophistry consists, for the 
greater part, in using a word in one sense in the premiss, 
and in another sense in the conclusion. We should accus- 
tom ourselves to think, and reason, in precise and steadfast 
terms, even when custom, or the deficiency, or the corrup- 
tion of the language will not permit the same strictness in 
speaking. The mathematician finds this so necessary to the 
truths which he is seeking, that his science begins with, and 
is founded on, the definition of his terms. The botanist, the 
chemist, the anatomist, &c, feel and submit to this necessity 
at all costs, even at the risk of exposing their several pursuits 
to the ridicule of the many, by technical terms, hard to be 
remembered, and alike quarrelsome to the ear and the tongue. 
In the business of moral and religious reflection, in the ac- 
quisition of clear and distinct conceptions of our duties, and 
of the relations in which we stand to God, our neighbour, 
and ourselves, no such difficulties occur. At the utmost we 
have only to rescue words, already existing and familiar, 
from the false or vague meanings imposed on them by care- 
lessness, or by the clipping and debasing misusage of the 
market. And surely happiness, duty, faith, truth, and final 
blessedness, are matters of deeper and dearer interest for all 
men, than circles to the geometrician, or the characters of 
plants to the botanist, or the affinities and combining princi- 
ple of the elements of bodies to the chemist, or even than 
the mechanism (fearful and wonderful though it be !) of the 
perishable tabernacle of the soul can be to the anatomist. 
Among the aids to reflection, place the following maxim pro- 
minent : let distinctness in expression advance side by side 
with distinction in thought. For one useless subtlety in our 



PRUDENTIAL APHORISMS. 95 

elder divines and moralists, I will produce ten sophisms of 
equivocation in the writings of our modern preceptors : and 
for one error resulting from excess is distinguishing the in- 
different, I could show ten mischievous delusions from the 
habit of confounding- the diverse. 

Whether you arc reflecting for yourself, or reasoning with 
another, make it a rule to ask yourself the precise meaning of 
the word, on w ' ich the point in question appears to turn ; 
and if it may he (that is, by writers of authority has been) 
used in several senses, then ask which of these the word is at 
present intended to convey. By this mean, and scarcely 
without it, you will at length acquire a facility in detecting 
the quid pro quo. And believe me, in so doing you will 
enable yourself to disarm and expose four-fifths of the main 
arguments of our most renowned irreligious philosophers, an- 
cient and modern. For the quid pro quo is at once the 
rock and quarry, on and with which the strong holds of disbe- 
lief, materialism, and (more pernicious still) epicuiean mora- 
lity, are built. 

APHORISM II. 

i r ir.iiTON.g 

If we seriously consider what religion is. we shall find the 
saying of the wise king Solomon to be unexceptionably true : 
Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are 
peace. 

Doth religion require any thing of us more than that we 
live soberly, righteously , and godly in this present world 1 
Now what, I pray, can be more pleasant or peaceable than 
these ? Temperance is always at leisure, luxury always in a 
hurry : the latter weakens the body and pollutes the soul, the 
former is the sanctity, purity, and sound state of both. It is 
one of Epicurus' fixed maxims, ' That life can never be 
pleasant without virtue.' 

COMMENT. 

In the works of moralists, both Christian and Pagan, it is 



JJ6' AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

often asserted (indeed there are few common-places of more 
frequent recurrence) that the happiness even of this life con- 
sists solely, or principally in virtue ; that virtue is the only 
happiness of this life ; that virtue is the truest pleasure, &c. 

I doubt not that the meaning, which the writers intended 
to convey by these and the like expressions, was true and 
wise. But I deem it safer to say, that in all the outward re- 
lations of this life, in all our outward conduct and actions, 
both in what we should do, and in what we should abstain 
from, the dictates of virtue are the very same with those of 
self-interest ; tending to, though they do not proceed from, 
the same point. For the outward object of virtue being the 
greatest producible sum of happiness of all men, it must 
needs include the object of a;, intelligent self-love, which is 
the greatest possible happiness of one individual ; for what 
is true of all must be true of each. Hence, you cannot be- 
come better, (that is, more virtuous), but you will become 
happier : and you cannot become worse, (that is, more vi- 
cious), without an increase of misery (or at the best a propor- 
tional loss of enjoyment) as the consequence. If the thing 
were not inconsistent with our well being, and known to be 
lb, it would not have been classed as a vice. Thus what in 
an enfeebled and disordered mind is called prudence, is the 
voice of nature in a healthful state : as is proved by the 
known fact, that the prudential duties, (that is, those actions 
which are commanded by virtue because they are prescribed 
by prudence), the animals fulfil by natural instinct. 

The pleasure that accompanies or depends on a healthy 
and vigorous body will be the consequence and reward of a 
temperate life and habits of active industry, whether this 
pleasure were or were not the chief or only determining mo- 
tive thereto. Virtue may, possibly, add to the pleasure a 
good of another kind, a higher good, perhaps, than the world- 
ly mind is capable of understanding, a spiritual complacency, 
of which in your present sensualized state you can lorm no 
idea. It may add, I say, but it cannot detract from it. Thus 



Pill !>! NTIAL APHORISMS. 97 

the reflected rays of the sun that gave light, distinction, and 
endless multiformity to the mind, give at the same time the 
pleasurable sensation of warmth to the body. 

If then the time has not yet come for any thing higher, 
act on the maxim of seeking the most pleasure with the least 
pain : and, if only you do not seek where you yourself know 
it will not be found, this very pleasure and this freedom from 
the disquietude of pain may produce in you a state of being 
directly and indirectly favourable to the germination and up- 
spring of a nobler seed. If it be true, that men are misera- 
ble because they are wicked, it is likewise true, that many are 
wicked because they are miserable. Health, cheerfulness, 
and easy circumstances, the ordinary consequences of tem- 
perance and industry, will at least leave the field clear and 
open, will tend to preserve the scales of the judgment even : 
while the consciousness of possessing the esteem, respect, 
and sympathy of your neighbours, and the sense of your own 
increasing power and influence, can scarcely fail to give a tone 
of dignity to your mind, and incline you to hope nobly of your 
own being. And thus they may prepare and predispose you 
to the sense and acknowledgment of a principle differing, 
not merely in degree but in kind, from the faculties and in- 
stincts of the higher and more intelligent species of animals, 
(the ant, the beaver, the elephant), and which principle is 
therefore your proper humanity. And on this account and 
with this view alone may certain modes of pleasurable or 
agreeable sensation, without confusion of terms, be honoured 
vjjith the title of refined, intellectual, ennobling pleasures. For 
pleasure (and happiness in its proper sense is but the conti- 
nuity and sum-total of the pleasure winch is allotted or hap- 
pens to a man. and hence by the Greeks called surv/ia, that 
is, good-hap, or more religiously eu&xi/xov/a, that is, favourable 
providence) — pleasure, I say, consists in the harmony be- 
tween the specific excitability of a living creature, and the 
exciting causes correspondent thereto. Considered therefore 
exclusively in and foi itself, the only question i> quantum. 



98 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

not quale ? How much on the whole ? the contrary, that is, 
the painful and disagreeable, having been subtracted. The 
quality is a matter of taste : et de gustibus non est dispu- 
tandum. No man can judge for another. 

This, I repeat, appears to me a safer language than the 
sentences quoted above (that virtue alone is happiness ; that 
happiness consists in virtue, &c.) sayings which I find it hard 
to reconcile with other positions of still more frequent occur- 
rence in the same divines, or with the declaration of St. Paul : 
" If in this life only we have hope, we are of all men most 
miserable.'" 

At all events, I should rely far more confidently on the con- 
verse, namely, that to be vicious is to be miserable. Few 
men are so utterly reprobate, so imbruted by their vices, as 
not to have some lucid, or at least quiet and sober, intervals ; 
and in such a moment, dum desaviunt ij'ce, few can stand up 
unshaken against the appeal to their own experience — what 
have been the wages of sin ? what has the devil done for 
you ? What sort of master have you found him ? Then let 
us in befitting detail, and by a series of questions that ask no 
loud, and are secure against any false, answer, urge home 
the proof of the position, that to be vicious is to be wretch- 
ed : adding the fearful corollary, that if even in the body, 
which as long as life is in it can never be wholly bereaved of 
pleasurable sensations, vice is found to be misery, what must 
it not be in the world to come ? There, where even the 
crime is no longer possible, much less the gratifications that 
once attended it — where nothing of vice remains but its guilt 
and its misery — vice must be misery itself, all and utter mis- 
ery. — So best, if I err not, may the motives of prudence be 
held forth, and the impulses of self-love be awakened, in al- 
liance with truth, and free from the danger of confounding 
things (the laws of duty, I mean, and the maxims of interest) 
which it deeply concerns us to keep distinct, inasmuch as 
this distinction and the faith therein are essential to our mo- 
ral nature, and this again the ground-work and pre-condition 



PRUDENTIAL APHORISMS. 99 

of the spiritual state, in whirl) the humanity strives after god- 
liness and, in the name and power, and through the preve- 
nient and assisting graee, of the Mediator, will not strive in 
vain. 

The advantages of a life passed in conformity with the 
precepts of virtue and religion, and in how many and various 
respects they recommend virtue and religion even on grounds 
of prudence, form a delightful subject of meditation, and a 
source of refreshing thought to good and pious men. Nor 
is it strange if, transported with the view, such persons should 
sometimes discourse on the charm of forms and colours to 
men whose eyes are not yet couched ; or that they occasion- 
ally seem to invert the relations of cause and effect, and for- 
get that there are acts and determinations of the will and af- 
fections, the consequences of which may be plainly foreseen, 
and yet cannot be made our proper and primary motives for 
such acts and determinations, without destroying or entirely 
altering the distinct nature and character of the latter. So- 
phron is well informed that wealth and extensive patronage 
will be the consequence of his obtaining the love and esteem 
of Constantia. But if the foreknowledge of this consequence 
were, and were found out to be, Sophron's main and deter- 
mining motive for seeking this love and esteem ; and if Con- 
stantia were a woman that merited, or was capable of feeling, 
either the one or the other ; would not Sophron find (and de- 
servedly too) aversion and contempt in their stead ? Where- 
in, if not in this, differs the friendship of worldlings from 
true friendship? Without kind offices and useful services, 
wherever the power and opportunity occur, love would be a 
hollow pretence. Yet what noble mind would not be offen- 
ded, if he were thought to value the love for the sake of 
the services, and not rather the services for the sake of the 
love ! 

APHORISM III. 
Though prudence in itself i» neither virtue nor spiritual 



100 AIDS TO REFLECTION, 

holiness, yet without prudence, or in opposition to it, neither 
virtue nor holiness can exist. 

APHORISM IV. 

Art thou under the tyranny of sin ? a slave to vicious hab- 
its? at enmity with God, and a skulking fugitive from thy 
own conscience ? O, how idle the dispute, whether the lis- 
tening to the dictates of prudence from prudential and self- 
interested motives be virtue or merit, when the not listening 
is guilt, misery, madness, and despair ! The best, the most 
Christianlike pity thou canst show, is to take pity on thy own 
soul. The best and most acceptable service thou canst ren- 
der, is to do justice and show mercy to thyself. 



MORAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS, 



APHORISM I. 

^EIGHTOK. 

What the apostles were in an extraordinary way befitting 
the first annunciation of a religion for all mankind, this all 
teachers of moral truth, who aim to prepare for its reception 
by calling the attention of men to the law in their own hearts, 
may, without presumption, consider themselves to be under 
ordinary gifts and circumstances : namely ambassadors for the 
greatest of kings, and upon no mean employment, the great 
treaty of peace and reconcilement betwixt him and man- 
kind. 

APHORISM II. 

OV THE FEELINGS NATURAL TO INGENUOUS MINDS TOWARDS 
THOSE WHO HAVE FIRST LED THEM TO REFLECT. 

LEICHTOH. 

Though divine truths are to be received equally from every 
minister alike, yet it must be acknowledged that there is 
something (we know not what to call it) of a more accepta- 
ble reception of those which at first were the means of bring- 
ing men to God, than of others : like the opinion some have 
of physicians, whom they love. 

APHORISM III. 

LE1GHTON AND COLERIDGE. 

The worth and value of knowledge is in proportion to the 
worth and value of its object. What, then, is the best 
know led" 



102 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

The exactest knowledge of things, is, to know them in 
their causes ; it is then an excellent thing, and worthy of 
their endeavours who a-e most desirous of knowledge, to 
know the best things in their highest causes ; and the hap- 
piest way of attaining to this knowledge, is, to possess those 
things, and to know them in experience. 

APHORISM IV. 

LEIGIITON. 

It is one main point of happiness, that he that is happy 
doth know and judge himself to be so. This being the pe- 
culiar good of a reasonable creature, it is to be enjoyed in a 
reasonable way. It is not as the dull renting of a stone, or 
any other natural body in its natural place ; but the know- 
ledge and consideration of it is the fruition of it, the very 
relishing and tasting of its sweetness. 

REMARK. 

As in a Christian land we receive the lessons of morality 
in connexion with the doctrines of revealed religion, we can- 
not too early free the mind from prejudices widely spread, in 
part through the abuse, but far more from ignorance, of the 
true meaning of doctrinal terms, which, however they may 
have been perverted to the purposes of fanaticism, are not 
only scriptural, but of too frequent occurrence in Scripture to 
be overlooked or passed by in silence. The following ex- 
tract, therefore, deserves attention, as clearing the doctrine of 
salvation, in connexion with the divine foreknowledge, from 
all objections on the score of morality, by the just and im- 
pressive view which the Archbishop here gives of those occa- 
sional revolutionary moments, that turn of the tide in the 
mind and character of certain individuals, which (taking a 
r eligious course, and referred immediately to the author of 
all good) were in his day, more generally than at present, en- 
titled effectual calling. The theological interpretation 
and the philosophic validity of this apostolic triad, election, 
.salvation, and effectual calling, (the latter being the interme- 



MORAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. 103 

diate) will be found anion.: the comments on tlsc aphorisms 
of spiritual import. For my present purpose it will be suffi- 
cient if only I prove that the doctrines are in themselves in- 
nocuous, and may be both holden and taught without any 
practical ill-consequences, and without detriment to the mo- 
ral frame. 

APHORISM V. 

I. E I G F7 T O \ . 

Two links of the chain (namely, election and salvation) 
are up in heaven in God's own hand ; but this middle one 
(that is, effectual calling) is let down to earth; into the hearts 
of his children, and they laying hold on it have sure hold on 
the other two: for no power can sever them. If. therefore, 
they can read the characters ot God's image in their own 
souls, those are the counter-part of the golden-characters of 
his love, in which their names are written in the book of life. 
Their believing writes their names under the promises of the 
revealed book of life (the Scriptures) and thus ascertains 
them, that the same names are in the secret book of life 
which God hath by himself from eternity. So that finding 
the stream of grace in their hearts, though they see not the 
fountain whence it flows, nor the ocean into which it returns, 
yet they know that it hath its source in their eternal election, 
and shall empty itseli into the ocean of their eternal salva- 
tion. 

If election, effectual calling, and salvation, be inseparably 
linked together, then, by any one of them a man may lay 
hold upon all the rest, and may know that his hold is sure : 
and this is the way wherein we may attain, and ought to 
seek, the comfortable assurance of the love of God. There- 
fore make your calling sure, and by that your election ; for 
that being done, this follows of itself. We arc not to pry 
immediately into the decree, but to read it in the performance. 
Though the mariner sees not the pole-star, yet the needle of 
the compass wiiich points to it. tells him which way he sails : 



104 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

thus the heart that is touched with the loadstone of divine 
love, trembling with godly fear, and yet still looking towards 
God by fixed believing, interprets the fear by the love in the 
fear, and tells the soul that its course is heavenward, towards 
the haven of eternal rest. He that loves, may be sure he 
was loved first ; and he that chooses God for his delight and 
portion, may conclude confidently, that God hath chosen him 
to be one of those that shall enjoy him. and be happy in him 
for ever ; for that our love and electing of him is but the re- 
turn and repercussion of 'the beams of his love shining upon 
us. 

Although from present unsanctification, a man cannot in- 
fer that he is not elected ; for the decree may, for part of a 
man's life, run (as it were) underground; yet this is sure, 
that that estate leads to death, and unless it be broken, will 
prove the black line of reprobation. A man hath no portion 
amongst the children of God, nor can read one word of com- 
fort in all the promises that belong to them, while he remains 
unholy. 

REMARK. 

In addition to the preceding. I select the following para- 
graphs as having no where seen the terms, spirit, the gifts of 
the spirit, and the like, so effectually vindicated from the 
sneers of the sciolist on the one hand, and protected from 
the perversions of the fanatic on the other. In these para- 
graphs the Archbishop at once shatters and precipitates the 
only draw-bridge between the fanatical and the orthodox doc- 
trine of grace, and the gifts of the spirit. In Scripture the 
term, spirit, as a power or property seated in the human soul, 
never stands singly, but is always specified by a genitive case 
following ; this being a Hebraism instead of the adjective 
which the writer would have used if he had thought, as well 
as written, in Greek. It is the spirit of meekness (a meek 
spirit), or the spirit of chastity, and the like. The moral 
result, the specific form and charact< I the vSjiiri* 



MORAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. 105 

manifests its presence, is the only sure pledge and token of 
its presence ; which is to be, and which safely may he, in- 
ferred from its practical effects, but of which an immediate 
know ledge or consciousness is impossible ; and every pre- 
tence to such knowledge is either hypocrisy or fanatical de- 
lusion. 

APHORISM VI 

LEIGHTON. 

If any pretend that they have the Spirit, and so turn away 
from the straight rule of the Holy Scriptures, they have a 
spirit indeed, but it is a fanatical spirit, the spirit of delusion 
and giddiness : but the Spirit of God, that leads his children 
in the way of truth, and is for that purpose sent them from 
heaven to guide them thither, squares their thoughts and ways 
to that rule whereof it is author, and that word which was 
inspired by it, and sanctifies them to obedience. He that 
saith I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a 
liar, and the truth is not in him. (1 John ii. 4.) 

Now this Spirit which sanctifieth, and sanctifieth to obe- 
dience, is within us the evidence of our election, and earnest 
of our salvation. And whoso are not sanctified and led by 
this Spirit, the Apostle tells us what is their condition : If 
any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. 
The stones which are appointed for that glorious temple 
above, arc hewn, and polished, and prepared for it here ; as 
the stones were wrought and prepared in the mountains, for 
building the temple at Jerusalem. 

COMMENT. 

There are many serious and sincere Christians who have 
not attained to a fulness of knowledge and insight, but are 
well and judiciously employed in preparing for it. Even 
th( >e may study the master-works of our elder divines with 
safely and advantage, if they will accustom themselves to 
translate the theological terms into their moral equivalents ; 



106 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

saying to themselves — This may not be all that is meant, but 
this is meant, and it is that portion of the meaning, which 
belongs to me in the present state of my progress. For ex- 
ample : render the words, sanctification of the Spirit, or the 
sanctifying influences of the Spirit, by purity in life and ac- 
tion from a pure principle. 

He needs only reflect on his own experience to be con- 
vinced, that the man makes the motive, and not the motive 
the man. What is a strong motive to one man, is no mo- 
tive at all to another. If, then, the man determines the mo- 
tive, what determines the man — to a good and worthy act, 
we will say, or a virtuous course of conduct ? The intelli- 
gent will, or the self-determining power ? True, in part it 
is ; and therefore the will is pre-eminently the spiritual con- 
stituent in our being. But will any reflecting man admit, 
that his own will is the only and sufficient determinant of 
all he is, and all he does ? Is nothing to be attributed to the 
harmony of the system to which he belongs, and to the pre- 
established fitness of the objects and agents, known and un- 
known, that surround him, as acting on the will, though, 
doubtless, with it likewise ? a process, which the co-instanta- 
neous yet reciprocal action of the air and the vital energy of 
the lungs in breathing may help to render intelligible. 

Again: in the world we see everywhere evidences of a 
unity, which the component parts are so far from explaining, 
that they necessarily pre-suppose it as the cause and con- 
dition of their existing as those parts ; or even of their 
existing at all. This antecedent unity, or cause and princi- 
ple of each union, it has since the time of Bacon and Kepler 
been customary to call a law. This crocus, for instance, or 
any other flower, the reader may have in sight or choose to 
bring before his fancy. That the root, stem, leaves, petals, 
&c. cohere to one plant, is owing to an antecedent power or 
principle in the seed, which existed before a single particle 
of the matters that constitute the size and visibility of the 
crocus, had been attracted from the surrounding soil, air, and 



tfORAL AM) RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. 101 

moisture. Shall we turn to the seed ? Here too the same 
necessity meets us. An antecedent unity (I speak not of the 
parent plant, but of an agenc) antecedent in the order of 
operance, yet remaining present as the conservative and re- 
productive power) must here too be supposed. Analyse the 
seed with the finest tools, and let the solar microscope come 
in aid of your senses, what do you find ? Means and instru- 
ments, a wondrous fairy tale of nature, magazines of food, 
stores of various sorts, pipes, spiracles, defences — a house 
of many chambers, and the owner and inhabitant invisi- 
ble ! Reflect further on the countless millions of seeds 
of the same name, each more than numerically differenced 
from every other : and further yet, reflect on the requisite 
harmony of all surrounding things, sach of which necessi- 
tates the same process of thought, and the coherence of all 
of which to a system, a world, demands its own adequate 
antecedent unity, which must therefore of necessity be pre- 
sent to all and in all, yet in no wise excluding or suspending 
the individual law or principle of union in each. Now will 
reason, will common sense, endure the assumption, that it is 
highly reasonable to believe a universal power, as the cause 
and pre-condition of the harmony of all particular wholes, 
each of which involves the working principle of its own 
union — that it is reasonable, I say, to believe this respecting 
the aggregate of objects, which without a subject, (that is, a 
sentient and intelligent existence) would be purposeless ; 
and yet unreasonable and even superstitious or ethusiastic to 
entertain a similar belief in relation to the system of intelli- 
gent and self-conscious beings, to the moral and personal 
world ? But if in this too, in the great community of per- 
sons, it is rational to infer a one universal presence, a one 
present to all and in all, is it not most irrational to suppose 
that a finite will can exclude it ? 

Whenever, therefore, the man is determined (that is, im- 
pelled and directed) to act in harmony of inter-communion, 
must not something be attributed to this all-present power as 



108 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

acting in the will ? and by what fitter names can we call this 
than the law, as empowering : the word, as informing ; 
and the spirit, as actuating? 

What has been here said amounts (I am aware) only to a 
negative conception ; but this is all that is required for a mind 
at that period of its growth which we are now supposing, 
and as long as religion is contemplated under the form of 
morality. A positive insight belongs to a more advanced 
stage : for spiritual truths can only spiritually be discerned. 
This we know from revelation, and (the existence of spirit- 
ual truths being granted) philosophy is compelled to draw 
the same conclusion. But though merely negative, it is suf- 
ficient to render the union of religion and morality conceiva- 
ble ; sufficient to satisfy an unprejudiced inquirer, that the 
spiritual doctrines of the Christian religion are not at war 
with the reasoning faculty, and that if they do not run on 
the same line, or radius, with the understanding, yet neither 
do they cut or cross it. It is sufficient, in short, to prove, 
that some distinct and consistent meaning may be attached 
to the assertion of the learned and philosophic Apostle, that 
the Spirit beareth witness ivith our spirit, that is, with the 
will, as the supernatural in man and the principle of our per- 
sonality — of that, I mean, by which we are responsible agents; 
persons, and not merely living things.* 

It will suffice to satisfy a reflecting mind, that even at the 
porch and threshold of revealed truth there is a great and 
worthy sense in which we may believe the Apostle's assurance, 
that not only doth the Spirit aid our infirmities ; that is, act 



* Whatever is comprised in the chain and mechanism of cause and ef- 
fect, of course necessitated, and having its necessity in some other thing, 
antecedent or concurrent — this is said to be natural ; and the aggregate 
and system of all such things is Nature. It is, therefore, a contradiction 
in terms to include in this the free-will, of which the verbal definition is — 
that which originates an act or state of being. In this sense, therefore, 
which is the sense of St. Paul, and indeed of the New Testament through- 
out, spiritual and supernatural are synonymous. 



MORAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. L09 

on llie will by a predi posing influence from without, as it 
w< re, though in a spiritual manner, and without suspending 
or destroying its freedom (the possibility of which is proved 
to us in the influences of education, of providential occur- 
rences, and, above all, of example) but that in regenerate 
souls it may act in the will ; that uniting and becoming one* 
with our will or spirit it may make intercession for us ; nay, 
in this intimate union taking upon itself the form of our in- 
firmities, may intercede for us with groanings that cannot 
be uttered. Nor is there any danger of fanaticism or en- 
thusiasm as the consequence of such a belief, if only the at- 
tention be carefully and earnestly drawn to the concluding 
words of the sentence (Romans viii. 26) ; if only the due 
force and the full import be given to the term unutterable or 
-incommunicable, in St. Paul's use of it. In this the strictest 
and most 'proper use of the term, it signifies, that the sub- 
ject, of which it is predicated, is something which I cannot, 
which from the nature of the thing it is impossible that I 
should, communicate to any human mind (even of a person 
under the same conditions with myself) so as to make it in 
itself the object of his direct and immediate consciousness. 
It cannot be the object of my own direct and immediate con- 
sciousness ; but must be inferred. Inferred it may be from 
its workings; it cannot be perceived in them. And, thanks 
to God ! in all points in which the knowledge is of high and 
necessary concern to our moral and religious welfare, from 
the effects it may safely be inferred by us, from the workings 
it may be assuredly known ; and the Scriptures furnish the 
clear and unfailing rules for directing the inquiry, and for 
drawing the conclusion. 



* Some distant and faint similitude c-f thi ;, thai merely as a similitude 
may be innocently used to quiet the fancy, provided it be not imposed on 
the understanding as an analogoi I in kind, i 

to us in thi the magnet to awa] e magnetic 

power in a bar of iron, and (in the instance of the compound magnet) ac- 
ting in and with the latter 



110 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

If* any reflecting mind be surprised that the aids of the di- 
vine Spirit should be deeper than our consciousness can reach, 
it must arise from the not having attended sufficiently to the 
nature and necessary limits of human consciousness. For 
the same impossibility exists as to the first acts and move- 
ments of our own will — the farthest distance our recollection 
can follow back the traces, never leads us to the first foot- 
mark — the lowest depth that the light of our consciousness 
can visit even with a doubtful glimmering, is still at an un- 
known distance from the ground : and so, indeed, must it be 
with all truths, and all modes of being that can neither be 
counted, coloured, or delineated. Before and after, when 
applied to such subjects are but allegories, which the sense 
or imagination supplies to the understanding. The position 
of the Aristoteleans, nihil in intellectu quod non prius in 
sensu, on which Mr. Locke's Essay is grounded, is irrefraga- 
ble : Locke erred only in taking half the truth for a whole 
truth. Conception is consequent on perception. What we 
cannot imagine, we cannot, in the proper sense of the word, 
conceive. 

I have already given one definition of nature. Another, 
and differing from the former in words only, is this : What- 
ever is representable in the forms of time and space, is na- 
ture. But whatever is comprehended in time and space, is 
included in the mechanism of cause and effect. And converse- 
ly, whatever, by whatever means, has its principle in itself, 
so far as to originate its actions, cannot be contemplated in 
any of the forms of space and time ; it must therefore, be 
considered as spirit or spiritual by a mind in that stage of its 
developement which is here supposed, and which we have 
agreed to understand under the name of morality or the moral 
state : for in this stage we are concerned only with the form- 
ing of negative conceptions, negative convictions ; and by spir- 
itual I do not pretend to determine what the will is, but what 
it is not — namely, that it is not nature. And as no man who 
admits a will at all, (for we may safely presume, that no man 



MORAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. Ill 

not meaning to speak figuratively, would call the shifting cur- 
rent of a stream the will* of the river), will suppose it below 
nature, we may safely add, that it is supernatural; and this 
without the least pretence to any positive notion or insight. 

Now morality accompanied with convictions like these, I 
have ventured to call religious morality. Of the importance 
I attach to the state of mind implied in these convictions, for 
its own sake, and as the natural preparation for a yet higher 
state and a more substantive knowledge, proof more than 
sufficient, perhaps, has been given in the length and minute- 
ness of this introductory discussion, and in the foreseen risk 
which I run of exposing the volume at large to the censure 
which every work, or rather which every writer, must be pre- 
pared to undergo, who, treating of subjects that cannot be 
seen, touched, or in any other way made matters of outward 
sense, is yet anxious both to attach to and to convey a distinct 
meaning by, the words he makes use of — the censure of being 
dry, abstract, and (of all qualities most scaring and opprobri- 
ous to the ears of the present generation) metaphysical : 
though how it is possible that a work not physical, that is ? 
employed on objects known or believed on the evidence of the 
senses, should be other than metaphysical, that is treating on 
subjects, the evidence of which is not derived from the sen- 
ses, is a problem which critics of this order find it conven- 
ient to leave unsolved. 

The author of the present volume, will, indeed, have rea- 
son to think himself fortunate, if this be all the charge ! — 
How many smart quotations, which (duly cemented by per- 
sonal allusions to the author's supposed pursuits, attachments, 

* " The river windeth at his own sweet will." 
Wordsworth? s exquisite Sonnet on Westminster Bridge at sun-rise. 

But who does not see that here the poetic charm arises from the known 
and felt impropriety of the expression, in the technical sense of the word 
impropriety, among grammarians 



112 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

and infirmaties), would of themselves make up a review of 
the volume, might be supplied with the works of Butler, 
Swift, and Warburton. For instance : 'It may not be amiss 
to inform the public, that the compiler of the Aids to Reflec- 
tion, and commenter on a Scotch Bishop's Platonico-Calvin- 
istic commentary on St. Peter, belongs to the sect of the JEo- 
lists, whose fruitful imaginations led them into certain notions 
w! nch, although in appearance very unaccountable, are not 
without their mysteries and meanings ; furnishing plenty of 
matter for such, whose converting imaginations dispose them 
to reduce all things into types : who can make shadows, no 
thanks to the sun ; and then mould them into substances, no 
thanks to philosophy ; whose peculiar talent lies in fixing 
tropes and allegories to the letter, and refining what is literal 
into figure and mystery.' — Tale of the Tub, sec. xi. 

And would it were my lot to meet with a critic, who, in the 
might of his own convictions, and with arms of equal point 
and efficiency from his own forge, would come forth as my 
assailant ; or who, as a friend to my purpose, would set forth 
the objections to the matter and pervading spirit of these aph- 
orisms, and the accompanying elucidations. Were it my 
task to form the mind of a young man of talent, desirous to 
establish his opinions and belief on solid principles, and in the 
light of distinct understanding, I would commence his theo- 
logical studies, or, at least, the most important part of them 
respecting the aids which religion promises in our attempts 
to realize the ideas of morality, by bringing together all the 
passages scattered throughout the writings of Swift and But- 
ler, that bear on enthusiasm, spiritual operations, and preten- 
ces to the gifts of the spirit, with the whole train of new lights, 
raptures, experiences, and the like. For all that the richest 
wit, in intimate union with profound sense and steady obser- 
vation, can supply on these topics, is to be found in the 
works of these satirists ; though unhappily alloyed with much 
that can only tend to pollute the imagination. 

Without stopping to estimate the degree of caricature in 



MORAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. 1 13 

the portraits sketched by these bold masters, and without at- 
tempting to determine in how many of the enthusiasts 
brought forward by them in proof of the influence of false 
doctrines, a constitutional insanity that would probably have 
shown itself in some other form, would be the truer solution, 
I would direct my pupil's attention to one feature common 
to the whole group — the pretence, namely, of possessing, or 
a belief and expectation grounded on other men's assurances 
of t! possessing, an immediate consciousness, a sensible 
experience, of the Spirit in and during its operation on the 
soul. It is not enough that you grant them a consciousness 
of the gifts and graces infused, or an assurance of the spirit- 
ual origin of the same, grounded on their correspondence to 
the Scripture promises, and their conformity with the idea of 
the divine giver. No ! they all alike, it will be found, lay 
e: im (or at least look forward) to an inward perception of 
the Spirit itself and of its operating. 

Whatever must be misrepresented in order to be ridiculed, 
i in fact not ridiculed ; but the thing substituted for it. It is 
a satire on something else, coupled with a lie on the part 
of the satirist, who knowing, or having the means of 
knowing the truth, chose to call one thing by the name of 
another. The pretensions to the supernatural, pilloried by 
Butler, sent to Bedlam by Swift, and (on their re-appearance 
in public) gibbeted by Warburton, and anatomized by Bish- 
op Lavingtou, one and all have this for their essential char- 
acter, that the Spirit is made the immediate object of sense 
or sensation. Whether the spiritual presence and agency 
are supposed cognizable by indescribable feeling or unim- 
aginable vision by some specific visual energy ; whether seen 
or heard, or touched, smelt, and tasted — for in those vast 
store-houses of fanatical assertion, the volumes of ecclesiast- 
ical history and religious auto-biography, instances are not 
wanting even of the three latter extravagances ; — this variety 
in the mode may render the several pretensions more or less 
offensive to the taste : but with the same absurdity for the 
15 



114 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

reason, tins being derived from a contradiction in terms com- 
mon and radical to them all alike, the assumption of a some- 
thing essentially supersensual, that is nevertheless the object 
of sense, that is. not supersensual. 

Well then ! — for let me be allowed still to suppose the rea- 
der present to me, and that I am addressing him in the char- 
acter of a companion and guide — the positions recommend- 
ed for your examination not only do not involve, but ex- 
clude, this inconsistency. And for ought that hitherto ap- 
pears, we may see with complacency the arrows of satire 
feathered with wit, weighted with sense, and discharged by a 
strong arm, fly home to their mark. Our conceptions of a 
possible spiritual communion, though they are but negative, 
and only preparatory to a faith in its actual existence, stand 
neither in the level or the direction of the shafts. 

If it be objected, that Swift and Warburton did not choose 
openly to set up the interpretations of later and more ration- 
al divines against the decisions of their own church, and from 
prudential considerations did not attack the doctrine in toto : 
that is their concern (I would answer), and it is more charit- 
able to think otherwise. But we are in the silent school of 
reflection, in the secret confessional of thought. Should we 
lie for God, and that to our own thoughts ? They indeed, 
who dare do the one, will soon be able to do the other. — 
So did the comforters of Job : and to the divines, who re- 
semble Job's comforters, we will leave both attempts. 

But (it may be said), a possible conception is not necessa- 
rily a true one ; nor even a probable one, where the facts can 
be otherwise explained. In the name of the supposed pupil 
I would reply — That is the very question I am preparing 
myself to examine ; and am now seeking the vantage ground 
where I may best command the facts. In my own person, I 
would ask the objector, whether he counted the declarations 
of Scripture among the facts to be explained. But both for 
myself and my pupil, and in behalf of all rational inquiry, I 
would demand that the decision should not be such, in itself 



MORAL \Mt RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. 115 

or in its effects, as would prevent our becoming acquainted 
with the most important of these facts ; nay, such as would, 
for the mind of the decider, preclude their very existence. — 
Unless ye believe, says the prophet, ye cannot understand. 
Suppose (whai is at least possible^ that the facts should be 
consequent on the belief, it is clear that without the belief 
the materials, on which the understanding is to exert itself, 
would be wanting. 

The reflections that naturally arise out of this last remark, 
are those that best suit the stage at which we last halted, and 
from which we now recommence our progress — the state of 
amoral man, who has already welcomed certain truths of re- 
ligion, and is inquiring after other and more special doctrines : 
still, however, as a moralist, desirous indeed, to receive them 
into combination with morality, but to receive them as its 
aid not as its substitute. Now, to such a man 1 say ; — Be- 
fore you reject the opinions and doctrmes asserted and enfor- 
ced in the following extract from Leighton, and before you 
give way to the emotions of distaste or ridicule, which the 
prejudices of the circle in which you move, or your own fa- 
miliarity with the mad perversions of the doctrine by fanatics 
in all ages, have connected with the very words, spirit, grace, 
gifts, operations, etc.. re-examine the arguments advanced in 
the first pages of this introductory comment, and the simple 
and sober view of the doctrine, contemplated in the first in- 
stance as a mere idea of the reason, flowing naturally from the 
admission of an infinite Omnipresent mind as the ground of 
the universe. Reflect again and again, and be sure that you 
understand the doctrine before you determine on rejecting it. 
That no false judgments, no extravagant conceits, no prac- 
tical ill-consequences need arise out of the belief of the spirit, 
and its possible communion with the spiritual principle in 
man, or can arise out of the right belief, or are compatible with 
the doctrine truly and scripturally explained, Leighton, and 
almost every single period in the passage here transcribed 
from him, will suffice to convince you. 



116 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

On the other hand, reflect on the consequences of rejecting 
it. For surely it is not the act of a reflecting- mind, nor the 
part of a man of sense to disown and cast out one tenet, and 
yet persevere in admitting and clinging to another that has 
neither sense nor purpose, that does not suppose and rest on 
the truth and reality of the former ! If you have resolved that 
all belief of a divine comforter present to our inmost being 
and aiding our infirmities, is fond and fanatical — if the Scrip- 
tures promising and asserting such communion are to be ex- 
plained away into the action of circumstances, and the ne- 
cessary movements of the vast machine, in one of the circu- 
lating chains of which the human will is a petty link — in 
what better light can prayer appear to you, than the groans 
of a wounded lion in his solitary den, or the howl of a dog 
with his eyes on the moon ? At the best, you can regard it 
only as a transient bewilderment of the social instinct, as a 
social habit misapplied ! Unless indeed you should adopt 
the theory which I remember to have read in the writings of 
the late Dr. Jebb, and for some supposed beneficial re-action 
of praying on the prayer's own mind, should practise it as a 
species of animal-magnetism to be brought about by a wilful 
eclipse of the reason, and a temporary make-believe on the 
part of the self-magnetizer ! 

At all events, do not pre-judge a doctrine, the utter rejec- 
tion of which must oppose a formidable obstacle to your accept- 
ance of Christianity itself, when the books, from which alone 
we can learn what Christianity is and what it teaches, are so 
strangely written, that in a series of the most concerning 
points, including (historical facts excepted) all the peculiar 
tenets of the religion, the plain and obvious meaning of the 
words, that in which they were understood by learned and 
simple for at least sixteen centuries, during the far larger part 
of which the language was a living language, is no sufficient 
guide to their actual sense or to the writer's own meaning ! 
And this too, where the literal and received sense involves 
nothing impossible, or immoral, or contrary to reason. With 



MORAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. 117 

such a persuasion, deism would be a more consistent creed. 
But, alas ! even this will fail you. The utter rejection of all 
present and ■• ving communion with the universal spirit im- 
poverishes deism itself, and renders it as cheerless as atheism, 
from which indeed it would differ only by an obscure imper- 
sonation of what the atheist receives unpersonified under the 
name of fate or nature. 

APHORISM VII. 

LEIGHTOH AM) COLERIDGE. 

The proper and natural effect, and in the absence of all dis- 
turbing or intercepting forces, the certain and sensible ac- 
companiment of peace (or reconcilement) with God, is our 
own inward peace, a calm and quiet temper of mind. And 
where there is a consciousness of earnestly desiring, and of 
having sincerely striven after the former, the latter may be 
considered as a sense of its presence. In this case, I say, and 
for a soul watchful and under the discipline of the gospel, 
the peace with a man's self may be the medium or organ 
through which the assurance of his peace with God is con- 
veyed. We will not therefore condemn tins mode of speak- 
ing, though we dare not greatly recommend it. Be it, that 
there is, truly and in sobriety of speech, enough of just anal- 
ogy in the subject meant, to make this use of the words, if less 
than proper, yet something more than metaphorical ; still we 
must be cautious not to transfer to the object the defects or 
the deficiency of the organ, which must needs partake of the 
imperfections of the imperfect beings to whom it belongs. 
Not without the co-assurance of other senses and of the same 
sense in other men, dare we affirm that what our eye beholds 
is verily there to be beholden. Much less may we conclude 
negatively, and from the inadequacy, or the suspension, or 
from every other affection of sight infer the non-existence, or 
departure, or changes of the thing itself. The chameleon 
darkens in the shade of him that bends over it to ascertain 
its colours. In like manner, but with yet greater caution, 



118 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

ought we to think respecting a tranquil habit of the inward 
life, considered as a spiritual sense as the medial organ in and 
by which our peace with God, and the lively working of his 
grace on our spirit, are perceived by us. This peace which 
we have with God in Christ, is inviolable ; but because the 
sense and persuasion of it may be interrupted, the soul that 
is truly at peace with God may for a time be disquieted in it- 
self, through weakness of faith, or the strength of temptation, 
or the darkness of desertion, losing sight of that grace, that 
love and light of God's countenance, on which its tranquility 
and joy depend. Thou didst hide thy face, said David, and 
I was troubled. But when these eclipses are over, the soul 
is revived with new consolation, as the face of the earth is re- 
newed and made to smile with the return of the sun in the 
spring ; and this ought always to uphold Christians in the 
saddest times, namely that the grace and love of God towards 
them depend not on their sense, nor upon anything in them, 
but is still in itself, incapable of the smallest alteration. 

A holy heart that gladly entertains grace, shall find that it 
and peace cannot dwell asunder ; while an ungodly man may 
sleep to death in the lethargy of carnal presumption and im- 
penitency ; but a true, lively solid peace, he cannot have. — 
There is no peace to the wicked, saith my God, Tsa. lvii. 21 . 

APHORISM VIII. 
WORLDLY HOPES. 



I.EICillTON. 



Worldly hopes are not living, but lying hopes ; they die of- 
ten before us, and we live to bury them, and see our own 
folly and infelicity in trusting to them ; but at the utmost, 
they die with us when we die, and can accompany us no fur- 
ther. But the lively hope, which is the Christian's portion, 
answers expectation to the full, and much beyond it, and de- 
ceives no way but in that^appy way of far exceeding it. 

A living hope, living in death itself ! The world dares say 
no more for its device, than Dum spirospero : but the chil- 



MORAL \M> n \! BORISMS. I I i) 

(Inn of Clod can add. by virtue of this living hope, Dum ex- 
spiro spero. 

APHORISM IX. 
the worldling's fear. 

LE1G HTON . 

- It is a fearful thing when a man and all his hopes die to- 
gether. Thus saith Solomon of the wicked, Prov. xi. 7., — 
"When he dieth, then die his hopes; (many of them before, 
but at the utmost then,* all of them ;) but the righteous hath 
hope in his death. Prov. xiv. 32. 

APHORISM X. 

WORLDLY MIRTH. 

I ! K.iri'V \>.T> COLERIDGE. 

As hethat taketh away a garment in cold toeather, and as 
vinegar upon nitre, so is he that singeth songs to a heavy 
heart. Prov. xxv. 20. Worldly mirth is so far from curing- 
spiritual grief, that even worldly grief, where it is great and 
takes deep root is not allayed but increased by it. A. man 
who is full of inward heaviness, the more he is encompassed 
about with mirth, it exasperates and enrages his grief the 
more ; like ineffectual weak physic, which remove, not the hu- 
mour, but stirs it and makes it more unquiet. But spiritual 
joy is seasonable for all estates : in prosperity, it is pertinent 
to crown and sanctify all other enjoyments, with this which 
so far surpasses them ; and in distress, it is the only Nepenthe, 
the cordial of fainting spirits : so Psal. iv. 7, He hath put 
joy into my heart. This mirth makes way for itself, which 
other mirth cannot do. These songs are sweetest in the 
night of distress. 

There is something exquisitely beautiful and touching in 
the first of these similes : and the second, though less pleas- 



<> fthe numerous proofs against those who with ;i strange incon 

sistency hold the Old Testamenl t" have been inspired throughout, and yel 
'■'ii\ thai thr doctrine of a future state is taught therein. 



1;J0 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

ing to the imagination, has the charm of propriety, and ex- 
presses the transition with equal force and liveliness. A 
grief of recent birth is a sick infant that must have its medi- 
cine administered in its milk, and sad thoughts are the sor- 
rowful heart's natural food. This is a complaint that is not 
to be cured by opposites, which for the most part only reverse 
the symptoms while they exasperate the disease — or like a 
rock in the mid channel of a river swollen by a sudden rain- 
fiush from the mountain, which only detains the excess of wa- 
ters from their proper outlet, and makes them foam, roar, and 
eddy. The soul in her desolation hugs the sorrow closer to 
her, as her sole remaining garment : and this must be drawn 
off so gradually, and the garment to be put in its stead so 
gradually slipt on and feel so like the former, that the sufferer 
shall be sensible of the change only by the refreshment. — 
The true spirit of consolation is well content to detain the 
tear in the eye, and finds a surer pledge of its success in the 
smile of resignation that dawns through that, than in the live- 
liest show of a forced and alien exhilaration. 

APHORISM XI. 

Plotinus thanked God, that his soul was not tied to an im- 
mortal body. 

APHORISM XII. 

LEJGHTO.V AND COLERIDGE. 

What a full confession do we make of our dissatisfaction 
with the objects of our bodily senses, that in our attempts to 
express what we conceive the best of beings, and the greatest 
of felicities to be, we describe by the exact contraries of all, 
that we experience here — the one as infinite, incomprehensi- 
ble, immutable, &c. the other as incorruptible, undefiled, and 
that passeth not away. At all events, this co-incidence, say 
rather, identity of attributes is sufficient to apprize us, that to 
be inheritors of bliss, we must become the children of God. 

This remark ofLeighton's is ingenious and startling. An- 
other, and more fruitful, perhaps more solid, inference front 



MURAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. 121 

the fact would be, that there is something in the human mind 
which makes it know (as soon as it is sufficiently awakened 
to reflect on its own thoughts and notices), that in all finite 
quantity there is an infinite, in all measure of time an eternal ; 
that the latter are the basis, the substance, the true and abid- 
ing reality of the former ; and that as we truly are, only as 
far as God is with us, so neither can we truly possess (that is 
enjoy) our being or any other real good, but by living in the 
sense of his holy presence. 

A life of wickedness in a life of lies ; and an evil being, or 
the being of evil, the last and darkest mystery. 

APHORISM XIII. 
THE WISEST USE OF THE IMAGINATION. 



LEIGIITO*. 



It is not altogether unprofitable ; yea, it is great wisdom in 
Christians to be arming themselves against such temptations 
as may befall them hereafter, though they have not as yet met 
with them ; to labour to overcome them before-hand, to sup- 
pose the hardest things to be incident to them, and to put on 
the strongest resolutions they can attain unto. Yet all that 
is but an imaginary effort ; and therefore there is no assurance 
that the victory is any more than imaginary too, till it come 
to action, and then, they that have spoken and thought very 
confidently, may prove but (as one side of the Athenians) 
fortes in tabula, patient and courageous in picture or fancy ; 
and, notwithstanding all their arms, and dexterity in handling 
them by way of exercise, may be foully defeated when they 
are to fight in earnest, 

APHORISM XIV. 
THE LANGUAGE OF SCRIPTURE. 

The word of God is spoken to men, and therefore it speaks 

the language of the children of men. This just and pregnant 

thought was suggested to Leighton In Gen. xxii. 13. The 
16 



122 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

same text has led me to unfold and expand the remark. — On 
moral subjects, the scriptures speak in the language of the 
affections which they excite in us ; on sensible objects, nei- 
ther metaphysically, as they are known by superior intelli- 
gences ; nor theoretically, as they would be seen by us were 
we placed in the sun ; but as they are represented by our 
human senses in our present relative position. Lastly, from 
no vain, or worse than vain, ambition of seeming to walk on 
the sea of mystery in my way to truth, but in the hope of re- 
moving a difficulty that presses heavily on the minds of ma- 
ny who in heart and desire are believers, and which long 
pressed on my own mind. I venture to add : that on spiritu- 
al things, and allusively to the mysterious union or conspira- 
tion of the divine with the human in the spirits of the just, 
spoken of in Rom. vii. 27, the word of God attributes the 
language ol the spirit sanctified to the Holy One, the Sancti- 
fier. 

Now the spirit in man (that is, the will) knows its own 
state in and by its acts alone : even as in geometrical reason- 
ing the mind knows its constructive faculty in the act of con- 
structing, and contemplates the act in the product (that is, 
the mental figure or diagram) which is inseparable from the 
act and co-instantaneous. 

Let the reader join these two positions : first, that the di- 
vine Spirit acting in the human will is described as one with 
the will so filled and actuated : secondly, that our actions are 
the means, by which alone the will becomes assured of its 
own state ; and he will understand, though he may not per- 
haps adopt my suggestion, that the verse, in which God 
speaking of himself, says to Abraham, Now I know that thou 
fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thy only 
son, from, me — may be more than merely figurative. An ac- 
commodation I grant ; but in the thing expressed, and not 
altogether in the expressions. In arguing with infidels, or 
with the weak in faith, it is a part of religious prudence, no 
less than of religious morality, to avoid whatever looks like an 



MORAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. 123 

e\asion. To retain the literal sense, wherever the harmony 
of Scripture permits, and reason does not forbid, is ever the 
honester aiici, nine times in ten, the more rational and preg- 
nant interpretation. The contrary plan is an easy and ap- 
proved way of getting rid of a difficulty ; but nine times in 
ten a bad way of solving it. But alas ! there have been too 
many commentators who are content not to understand a text 
themselves, if only they can make the reader believe they 
do. 

Of the figures of speech in the sacred volume, that are on- 
ly figures of speech, the one of most frequent occurrence is 
that which describes an effect by the name of its most usual 
and best known cause : the passages, for instance, in which 
grief, fury, repentance, &,c, are attributed to the Deity. — 
But these are far enough from justifying the (I had almost 
said, dishonest) fashion of metaphorical glosses, in as well as 
out of the church ; and which our fashionable divines have car- 
ried to such an extent, as in the doctrinal part of their creed, 
to leave little else but metaphors. But the reader who wish- 
es to find this latter subject, and that of the aphorism, treat- 
ed more at large, is referred to Mr. Southey's Omniana, vol. 
ii. p. 7 — 12. and to the note in p. 62 — 67, of the author's 
second Lay Sermon. 

APHORISM XV. 
THE CHRISTIAN NO STOIC. 

LEIGHTOH AND COLERIDGE. 

Seek not altogether to dry up the stream of sorrow, but to 
bound it and keep it within its banks. Religion doth not 
destroy the life of nature, but adds to it a life more excellent ; 
yea, it doth not only permit but requires some feeling of afflic- 
tions. Instead of patience, there is in some men an affected 
pride of spirit suitable only to the doctrine of the Stoics as it 
is usually taken. They strive not to feel at all the afflictions 
that are on them ; but where there is no feeling at all, there 
can be no patience. 



124 Ains TO REFLECTION. 

Of the sects of ancient philosophy the Stoic is, perhaps, 
the nearest to Christianity. Yet even to this sect Christiani- 
ty is fundamentally opposite. For the Stoic attaches the 
highest honour (or rather, attaches honor solely) to the per- 
son that acts virtuously in spite of his feelings, or who has 
raised himself above the conflict by their extinction ; while 
Christianity instructs us to place small reliance on a virtue 
that does not begin by bringing the feelings to a conformity 
with the commands of the conscience. Its especial aim, its 
characteristic operation, is to moralize the affections. The 
feelings, that oppose a right act, must be wrong feelings. — 
The act, indeed, whatever the agent's feelings might be Chris- 
tianity would command ; and under certain circumstances 
would both command and commend it — commend it, as a 
healthful symptom in a sick patient ; and command it, as one 
of the ways and means of changing the feelings, or displac- 
ing them by calling up the opposite. 

COROLLARIES TO APHORISM XV. 

I. The more consciousness in our thoughts and words, 
and the less in our impulses and general actions, the better 
and more healthful the state both of head and heart. As the 
flowers from an orange tree in its time of blossoming, that 
burgeon forth, expand, fall, and are momently replaced, such 
is the sequence ot hourly and momently charities in a pure 
and gracious soul. The modern fiction which depictures the 
son of Cytherea with a bandage round his eyes, is not with- 
out a spiritual meaning. There is a sweet and holy blind- 
ness in Christian love even as there is a blindness of life, yea, 
and of genius too, in the moment of productive energy. 

II. Motives are symptoms of weakness, and supplements 
for the deficient energy of the living principle, the law with- 
in us. Let them then be reserved for those momentous acts 
and duties in which the strongest and best balanced natures 
must feel themselves deficient, and where humility, no less 
than prudence, prescribes deliberation. We find a similitude 



MORAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. 1 2 5 

of this, I had almost said a remote analogy, in organized bod- 
ies. The lowest class of animals or protozoa, polypi for in- 
stance, have neither brain nor nerves. Their motive powers 
are all from without. The sun, light, the warmth, the air are 
their nerves and brain. As life ascends, nerves appear : but 
still only as the conductors of an external influence ; next are 
seen the knots or ganglions, as so many foci of instinctive 
agency, that imperfectly imitate the yet wanting centre.- — > 
And now the promise and token of a true individuality are 
disclosed ; both the reservoir of sensibility and the imitative 
power that actuates the organs of motion, (the muscles) with 
the net-work of conductors, are all taken inward and appropri- 
ated ; the spontaneous rises into the voluntary, and finally af- 
ter various steps and a long ascent, the material and animal 
means and conditions are prepared for the manifestations of 
a free will, having its law within itself and its motive in the 
law — and thus bound to originate its own acts, not only with- 
out, but even against, alien stimulants. That in our present 
state we have only the dawning of this inward sun (the per- 
fect law of liberty) will sufficiently limit and qualify the pre- 
ceding position, if only it have been allowed to produce its 
two-fold consequence — the excitement of hope and the re- 
pression of vanity. 

APHORISM XVI. 

LF.IGHTOS. 

An excessive eating or drinking both makes the body sick- 
ly and lazy, fit for nothing but sleep, and besots the mind, 
as it clogs up with crudities the way through which the spir- 
its should pass,* bemiring them, and making them move heav- 



* Technical phrases of an obsolete system will yet retain their places, 
nay, acquire universal currency, and become sterling in the language, 
when they at once represent the feelings, and give an apparent solution of 
them by visual images easily managed by the fancy. Such are many terms 
and phrases from the humoral physiology long exploded, but which are far 
more popular than any description would he from the theory that has taken 
its place. 



1^6 AIDS TO hEF LECTION. 

ily, as a coach in a deep way : thus doth all immoderate use 
of the world and its delights wrong the soul in its spiritual 
condition, makes it sickly and feeble, full of spiritual distem- 
pers and inactivity, benumbs the graces of the Spirit, and fills 
the soul with sleepy vapours, makes it grow secure and heavy 
in spiritual exercises, and obstructs the way and motion of 
the Spirit of God, in the soul. Therefore, if you would be 
spiritual, healthful, and vigorous, and enjoy much of the con- 
solations of Heaven, be sparing and sober in those of the 
earth, and what you abate of the one, shall be certainly made 
up in the other. 

APHORISM XVII. 

INCONSISTENCY. 

LEIGHTON AND COLERIDGE. 

It is a most unseemly and unpleasant thing, to see a man's 
life full of ups and downs, one step like a Christian, and an- 
other like a worldling ; it cannot choose but both pain himself 
and mar the edification of others. 

The same sentiment, only with a special application to the 
maxims and measures of our cabinet statesmen, has been 
finely expressed by a sage poet of the preceding generation, 
in lines which no generation will find inapplicable or super- 
annuated. 

God and the world wo worship both together, 
Draw not our laws to Him, but His to ours ; 
Untrue to both, so prosperous in neither, 

The imperfect will brings forth but barren flowers ! 
Unwise as all distracted interests be, 
Strangers to God, fools in humanity : 
Too good for great things, and too great for good, 
While still " I dare not " waits upon " I woul'd."' 



MOHAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. 1 ^"7 

APHORISM XVII. CONTINUED. 
THE ORDINARY MOTIVE TO INCONSISTENCY. 

I.RICJHTOff. 

What though the polite man count thy fashion a little odd 
and too precise, it is because he knows nothing above the 
model of goodness which lie hath set himself, and therefore 
approves of nothing beyond it : he knows not God, and there- 
fore doth not discern and esteem what is most like Him. — 
When courtiers come down into the country, the common 
home bred people possibly think their habit strange ; but 
they care not for that, it is the fashion at court. What need, 
then, that Christians should be so tender-foreheaded, as to be 
put out of countenance because the world looks on holi- 
ness as a singularity ? It :s the only fashion in the highest 
court, yea, of the King of kings himself. 

APHORISM XVIII. 

SUPERFICIAL RECONCILIATIONS, AMD SELF-DECEIT IN FOR- 
GIVING. 

LEIGHTON. 

When after variances, men are brought to an agreement, 
they are much subject to this, rather to cover their remaining 
malices with superficial verbal forgiveness, than to dislodge 
them and free the heart of them. This is a poor self-deceit. 
As the philosopher said to him, who being ashamed that he 
was espied by him in a tavern in the outer room, withdrew 
himself to the inner, he called after him, 'That is not the 
way out ; the more you go that way, you will be the further 
in !' So when hatreds are upon admonition not thrown out, 
but retire inward to hide themselves, they grow deeper and 
stronger than before ; and those constrained semblances of 
reconcilement are but a false healing, do but skin the wound 
over, and therefore it usually breaks forth worse again. 



1:28 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

APHORISM XIX. 

OF THE WORTH AND THE DUTIES OF THE PREACHER. 

I.EIGHTOW. 

The stream of custom and our profession bring us to the 
preaching of the Word, and we sit out our hour under the 
sound ; but how few consider and prize it as the great ordU 
nance of God for the salvation of souls, the beginner and the 
sustainer of the divine life of grace within us ! And certain- 
ly, until we have these thoughts of it, and seek to feel it thus 
ourselves, although we hear it most frequently, and let slip no 
occasion, yea, hear it with attention and some present de- 
light, yet still we miss the right use of it, and turn it from 
its true end, while we take it not as that ingrafted word 
ivhichis able to save our souls. (James i. 21.) 

Thus ought they who preach to speak the word ; to endeav- 
our their utmost to accommodate it to this end, that sinners 
may be converted, begotten again, and believers nourished 
and strengthened in their spiritual life ; to regard no lower 
end, but aim steadily at that mark. Their hearts and 
tongues ought to be set on fire with holy zeal for God and 
love to souls, kindled by the Holy Ghost, that came down on 
the apostles in the shape of fiery tongues. 

And those that hear should remember this as the end of 
their hearing, that they may receive spiritual life and strength 
by the word. For though it seems a poor despicable busi- 
ness, that a frail, sinful man like yourselves should speak a 
few words in your hearing, yet, look upon it as the way 
whereinGod communciates happiness to those who believe,and 
works that believing unto happiness, alters the whole frame 
of the soul, and makes a new creation as it begets it again to 
the inheritance of glory. Consider it thus, which is its true 
notion ; and then, what can be so precious ? 

APHORISM XX. 

LEIGHTON. 

The difference is great in our natural life, in some persons 



MORAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. 1*23 

especially ; that they who in infancy were so feeble, and wrap- 
ped up as others in swaddling clothes, yet afterwards come to 
excel in wisdom and in the knowledge of sciences, or to be 
commanders of great armies, or to be kings : but the distance 
is far greater and more admirable, betwixt the small begin- 
nings of grace, and our after perfection, that fulness of know- 
ledge that we look for. and that crown of immortality which 
all they are born to who arc born of God. 

But as in the faces or actions of some children, characters 
and presages of their after-greatness have appeared (as a 
singular beauty in Moses' face, as they write of him, and as 
Cyrus was made king among the shepherd's children with 
whom he was brought up, &e.) so also, certainly, in these 
children of God, there be some characters and evidences that 
they are born for heaven by their new birth. That holiness 
and meekness, that patience and faith which shine in the ac- 
tions and sufferings of the saints, are characters of their Fath- 
er's image, and show their high original, and foretel their glo- 
ry to come ; such a glory as doth not only surpass the world's 
thoughts, but the thoughts of the children of God themselves, 
1 John iii. 2, 

COMMENT. 

This aphorism would, it may see, have been placed more 
fitly in the chapter following. In placing it here, I have been 
determined by the following convictions : 1. Every state, 
and consequently that which we have described as the state 
of religious morality, which is not progressive, is dead or re- 
trograde. 2. As a pledge of this progression, or, at least, 
as the form in which the propulsive tendency shows itself, 
there arc certain hopes, aspirations, yearnings, that with 
more or less of consciousness, rise and stir in the heart of 
true morality as the sap in the full-formed stem of a rose flows 
towards the bud, within which the flow is maturing. 3. No 
one, whose own experience authorizes him to confirm the 
truth of this statement, can have been conversant with the 

IT 



1^9 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

volumes of religious biography, can have perused (for in- 
stance) the lives of Cranmer, Ridley, Latimer, Wishart, Sir 
Thomas More, Bernard Gilpin, Bishop Bedel, or of Egede, 
Stewart, and the missionaries of the frozen world, without an 
occasional conviction, that these men lived under extra- 
ordinary influences, which in each instance and in all ages 
of the Christian sera bear the same chcracters, and both in 
the accompaniments and the results evidently refer to a com- 
mon origin. And what can this be ? is the question that 
must needs force itself on the mind in the first moment of re- 
flection on a phenomenon so interesting and apparently so a- 
nomalous. The answer is as necessarily contained in one or 
the other of two assumptions. These influences are either 
the product of delusion (insania amabilis. and the reaction 
of disordered nerves), or they argue the existence of a rela- 
tion to some real agency, distinct from what is experienced 
or acknowledged by the world at large, for which as not mere- 
ly natural on the one hand, and yet not assumed to be mirac- 
ulous* on the other, we have no apter name than spiritual. 
Now, if neither analogy justifies nor the moral feelings permit 
the former assumption ; and we decide therefore in favor of 
the reality of a state other and higher than the mere moral 
man, whose religionf consists in morality, has attained under 
these convictions ; can the existence of a transitional state 
appear other than probable ? or that these very convictions 
when accompanied by correspondent dispositions and stir- 
rings of the heart, are among the marks and indications of 

* In check of fanatical pretensions, it is expedient to confine the term mi- 
raculous, to cases where the senses are appealed to, in proof of something 
that transcends, or can be a part of, the experience derived from the senses. 

t For let it not be forgotten, that morality, as distinguished from pru- 
dence, implying, (it matters not under what name, whether of honour or 
duty, or conscience, still, I say, implying), and being grounded in, an awe 
of the invisible and a confidence therein beyond (nay, occasionally in appa- 
rent contradiction to) the inductions of outward experienee, is essentially 
religious. 



MORAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. 130 

such a state ? And thinking it not unlikely that among the 
readers of this volume, there may be found some individuals, 
whose inward state, though disquieted by doubts and oftener 
still perhaps by blank misgivings, may, nevertheless, betoken 
the commencement of a transition from a not irreligious mor- 
ality to a spiritual religion, with a view to their interests I 
placed this aphorism under the present head. 

APHORISM XXL 

I.EIGHT05. 

The most approved teachers of wisdom, in a human way, 
have required of their scholars, that to the end their minds 
might be capable of it. they should be purified from vice and 
wickedness. And it was Socrates' custom, when any one 
asked him a question, seeking to be informed by him, before 
he would answer them, he asked them concerning their own 
qualities and course of life. 

APHORISM XXII. 
KNOWLEDGE NOT THE ULTIMATE END OF RELIGIOUS PURSUITS. 

I.EIGHTON. 

The hearing and reading of the word, under which I com- 
prise theological sludies generally, are alike defective when 
pursued without increase of knowledge, and when pursued 
chiefly for increase of knowledge. To seek no more than a 
present delight, that evanisheth with the sound of the words 
that die in the air, is not to desire the word as meat, but as 
music, as God tells the prophet Ezekiel of his people, Ezek. 
xxxiii. 32. And lo, thou art to them as a very lovely song 
of one that hath a pleasant voice, and can play well upon 
an instrument ; for they hear thy words, and they do them 
not. To desire the word for the increase of knowledge, al- 
though this is necessary and commendable, and, being rightly 
qualified, is a part of spiritual accretion, yet take it as going 
no further it is not the true end of the word. Nor is the 
venting of that knowledge in speech and frequent discourse 



131 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

of the word and the divine truths that, are in it ; which, where 
it is governed with Christian prudence, is not to be despised 5 
but commended ; yet, certainly, the highest knowledge, and 
the most frequent and skilful speaking of the word severed 
from the growth here mentioned, misses the true end of the 
word. If any one's head or tongue should grow apace, and 
all the rest stand at a stay, it would certainly make him a 
monster ; and they are no other, who are knowing and dis- 
coursing Christians, and grow daily in that respect, but not 
at all in holiness of heart, and life, which is the proper growth 
of the children of God, Apposite to their case is Epictetus's 
comparison of the sheep ; they return not what they eat in 
grass, but in wool. 

APHORISM XXIII. 

THE SUM OE CHURCH HISTORY. 

LEIGHTOtt: 

In times of peace, the Church may dilate more, and build 
as it were in breadth, but in times of trouble, it arises more 
in height ; it is then built upwards : as in cities where men 
are straitened, they build usually higher than in the country. 

APHORISM XXIV. 

worthy to be framed and hung up in the library of 
every theological student. 

I.E1GHTON AND COLERIDGE. 

Where there is a great deal of smoke and no clear flame, it 
argues much moisture in the matter, yet it witnesseth certain- 
ly that there is a fire there ; and therefore dubious question- 
ing is a much better evidence, than that senseless deadness 
which most take for believing. Men that know nothing in 
sciences, have no doubts. He never truly believed, who was 
not made first sensible and convinced of unbelief. 

Never be afraid to doubt, if only you have the disposition 
to believe, and doubt in order that you may end in believing 



MOKAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. 132 

the truth. I will venture to add in my own name and from 
my own conviction the following- : 

APHORISM XXV. 

He, who begins by loving Christianity, better than truth, 
will proceed by loving his own sect or church better than 
Christianity, and end in loving himself l>cttcr than all. 

APHORISM XXVI. 

THE ABSENCE OF DISPUTES, AND A GENERAL AVEKSION TO RE- 
LIGIOUS CONTROV^K. IES, NO PROOF OF TRUE UNANIMITY. 

LEIGHTON AND COLERIDGE. 

The boasted peaceableness about questions of faith too of- 
ten proceeds from a superficial temper, and not seldom from 
a supercilious disdain of whatever has no marketable use or 
value, and from indifference to religion. Toleration is an herb 
of spontaneous growth in the soil of indifference ; but the 
weed has none of the virtues of the medical plant, reared by 
humility in the garden of zeal. Those, who regard religions 
as matters of taste, may consistently include all religious dif- 
ferences in the old adage, De gustibus non est disputan- 
dum. And many there be among these of Gallio's temper, 
who care for none of these things, and who account ; ques- 
tions in religion, as he did, but matter of words and names. 
And by this all religions may agree together. But that were 
not a natural union produced by the active heat of the spirit, 
but a confusion rather, arising from the want of it ; not a knit- 
ting together, but a freezing together, as cold congregates all 
bodies how heterogeneous soever, sticks, stones, and water ; 
but heat makes first a separation of different things, and then 
unites those that are of the same nature. 

Much of our common union of minds, T fear, proceeds from 
no other than the aforementioned causes, want of knowledge, 
and want of affection to religion. You that boast you live 
conformably to the appointments of the Church, and that no 



133 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

one hears of your noise, we may thank the ignorance of your 
minds for that kind of quietness. 

The preceding extract is particularly entitled to our seri- 
ous reflections, as in a tenfold degree more applicable to the 
present times than to the age in which it was written. We 
all know, that lovers are apt to take offence and wrangle on 
occasions that perhaps are but trifles, and which assuredly 
would appear such to those who regard love itself as folly. — 
These quarrels may, indeed, be no proof of wisdom ; but still, 
in the imperfect state of our nature the entire absence of the 
same, and this too on far more serious provocations, would 
excite a strong suspicion of a comparative indifference in the 
parties who can love so coolly where they profess to love so 
well. I shall believe our present religious tolerancy to pro- 
ceed from the abundance of our charity and good sense, 
when I see proofs that we are equally cool and forbearing as 
litigants and political partizans. 

APHORISM XXVII. 

THE INFLUENCE OF WORLDLY VIEWS (OR WHAT ARE CALLED A 
MAN'S PROSPECTS IN LIFtc), THE BANE OF THE CHRISTIAN 
MINISTRY. 

tEIGHTON.. 

It is a base, poor thing for a man to seek himself: far be- 
low that royal dignity that is here put upon Christians, and 
that priesthood joined with it. Under the law, those who 
were squint-eyed were incapable of the priesthood : truly, this 
squinting toward our own interest, the looking aside to that, 
in God's affairs especially, so deforms the face of the soul., 
that it makes it altogether unworthy the honour of this spiritual 
priesthood. Oh ! this is a large task, an infinite task. The 
several creatures bear their part in this ; the sun says some- 
what, and moon and stars, yea, the lowest have some share in 
it ; the very plants and herbs of the field speak of God ; and 
yet, the very highest and best, yea all of them together, the 
whole concert of heaven and earth cannot show forth all His 



MORAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. 134 

praise to the full. No, it is but a part, the smallest part of 
that glory, which they can reach. 

APHORISM XXVIII. 
despise none: despair of none. 



i.iuiiri on. 



The Jews would not willingly tread upon the smallest piece 
of paper in their way, but take it up; for possibly, said they, 
the name of God may be on it. Though there was a little 
superstition in this, yet there is nothing but good religion in 
it, if we apply it to men. Trample not on any ; there may 
be some work of grace there, that thou knowestnot of. The 
name of God may be written upon that, soul thou treadeston; 
it may be a soul that Christ thought so much of, as to give 
His precious blood for it ; therefore despise it not. 

APHORISM XXIX. 

MEN OF LEAST MERIT MOST APT TO BE CONTEMPTUOUS, BECAUSE 
MOST IGNORANT AND MOST OVERWEENING OF THEMSELVES. 

LEIGHTON. 

Too many take the ready course to deceive themselves ; 
for they look with both eyes on the failings and defects of oth- 
ers, and scarcely give their good qualities half an eye, while 
on the contrary in themselves they study to the full their own 
advantages, and their weaknesses and defects, (as one says), 
they skip over as children do their hard words in their lesson, 
that are troublesome to read ; and making this uneven paral- 
lel, what wonder il the result be a gross mistake of them- 
selves ! 



135 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

APHORISM XXX, 

VANITY MAY STRUT IN RAGS, AND HUMILITY BE ARRAYED IN 
PURPLE AND FINE LINEN. 

LEIGHTON. 

It is not impossible that there may be in some an affected 
pride in the meanness of apparel, and in others, under either 
neat or rich attire, a very humble unaffected mind : using it 
upon some of the aforementioned engagements, or such like, 
and yet the heart not at all upon it. Magnus qui fictilibus 
utitur tanquam argento, nee We minor qui orgento tan- 
quam fictilibus, says Seneca : Great is he who enjoys his 
earthenware as if it were plate and not less greater is the man 
to whom all his plate is no more than earthernware. 

APHORISM XXXI. 
OF THE DETRACTION AMONG RELIGIOUS PROFESSORS. 

LEIOHTON AND COLERIDGE. 

They who have attained a self-pleasing pitch of civility or 
formal religion, have usually that point of presumption with it 
that they make their own size the model and rule to examine 
all by. What is below it, they condemn indeed as profane ; 
but what is beyond it, they account needless and affected pre- 
ciseness : and therefore are as ready as others to let fly invec- 
tives or bitter taunts against it, which are the keen and poi- 
soned shafts of the tongue, and a persecution that shall be 
called to a strict account. 

The slanders, perchance, may not be altogether forged and 
untrue ; they may be the implements, not the inventions, of 
malice. But they do not on this account escape the guilt of 
detraction. Rather, it is characteristic of the evil spirit in 
question, to work by the advantage of real faults ; but these 
stretched and aggravated to the utmost. It is not expressi- 
ble HOW DEEP A WOUND A TONGUE SHARPENED TO THIS WORK 
WILL GIVE, WITH NO NOISE AND A VERY LITTLE WORD. This 

is the true white gunpowder, which the dreaming projectors 
of silent mischiefs -and insensible poisons sought for in the 



MORAL AM> RELIGIOUS A.PHORISMS. IW 

laboratories of art and nature, mi a world of good ; bu1 which 

was to be found in its most destructive form, in "the world of 
evil, the tongue" 

VPHORISM XXXII. 
THE REMEDY, 



I.K1GHTON. 



All true remedy must begin at the heart ; otherwise it will 
be but a mountebank cure, a false imagined conquest. The 
weights and wheels are there,and the clock strikes according to 
their motion. Even he that speaks contrary to what is within 
him, guilefully contrary to his inward conviction and know- 
ledge, yet speaks conformably to what is within him in the 
temper and frame of his heart, which is double, a heart and 
q heart, as the Psalmist hath it, Psal. xii. -2, 

APHORISM X.XXJII. 

LEIGHTON AND COLERIDGE. 

It is an argument of a candid and ingenuous mind, to de- 
light in the good name and commendations of others : to pass 
by their defects and take notice of their virtues ; and to speak 
and hear of those willingly, and not endure either to speak 
or hear of the other ; for in this indeed you may be little less 
guilty than the evil speaker, in taking pleasure in it, though 
you speak it not. He that willingly drinks in tales and calum- 
nies, will, from the delight he hath in evil hearing, slide in- 
sensibly into the humour of evil speaking. It is strange how 
most persons dispense with themselves in this point, and that 
in scarcely any societies shall we find a hatred of this ill, but 
rather some tokens of taking pleasure in it ; and until a Chris- 
tian sets himself to an inward watchfulness over his heart, 
not suffering in it any thought that is uncharitable, or vain 
self-esteem, upon the sight of others frailties, he will still be 
subject to somewhat of this, in the tongue or ear at least. So, 
then, as for the evil of guile in the tongue, a sincere heart. 
truth in the inward parts, powerfully redresses it ; therefore 



131 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

it is expressed, Psal. xv. 2, That speaketh the truth from 
his heart ; thence it flows. Seek much after this, to speak 
nothing- with God, nor men, but what is the sense of a single 
unfeigned heart. O sweet truth ! excellent but rare sinceri- 
ty ! he that loves that truth within, and who is himself at 
once the truth and the life, He alone can work it there ! 
Seek it of him. 

It is characteristic of the Roman dignity and sobriety, that, 
in the Latin, to favour with the tongue (favere lingua) 
means, to be silent. We say hold your tongue ! as if it were 
an injunction, that could not be carried into effect but by 
manual force, cr the pincers of the forefinger and thumb ! — 
And verily — I blush to say it — it is not women and French- 
men only that would rather have their tongues bitten than 
bitted, and feel their souls in a strait-waistcoat, when they 
are obliged to remain silent. 

APHORISM XXXIV. 
ON the passion for new and striking thoughts, 

LEIGHTON. 

In conversation seek not so much either to vent thy know- 
ledge, or to increase it, as to know more spiritually and ef- 
fectually what thou dost know. And in this way those mean 
despised truths, that every one thinks he is sufficiently seen 
in, will have a new sweetness and use in them, which thou 
didst not so well perceive before (for these flowers cannot 
be sucked dry), and in this humble sincere way thou shalt 
grow in grace and in knoivledge too. 

APHORISM XXXV. 

THE RADICAL DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE GOOD MAN AND THE 
VICIOUS MAN. 

LEIGHTON AND COLERIDGE. 

The godly man hates the evil he possibly by temptation 
hath been drawn to do. and loves the good he is frustrated 



MORAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. 13H 

of, and having intended, hath not attained to do. The sin- 
ner, who hath his denomination from sin us his course, hates 
the good which somctiir.es ho is forced to do, and loves that 
sin which many times he does not, either wanting occasion 
and means, so that he cannot do it, or through the check of 
an enlightened conscience possibly dares not do ; and though 
so bound up from the act, as a dog in a chain, yet the habit, 
the natural inclination and desire in him, is still the same, the 
strength of his affections is carried to sin. So in the weak- 
est sincere Christian, there is that predominant sincerity and 
desire of holy walking, according to which he is called a righ- 
teous person, the Lord is pleased to give him that name, and 
account him so, being uprighl in heart, though often failing. 

Leighton adds, '-There is a righteousness of a higher 
strain." I do not ask the reader's full assent to this position : 
I do not suppose him as yet prepared to yield it. But thus 
much he will readily admit, that here, if any where, we are 
to seek the fine line which, like stripes of light in light, dis- 
tinguishes, not divides, the summit of religious, morality from 
spiritual religion. 

" A righteousness (Leighton continues), that is not in him, 
but upon him. He is clothed with it." This Reader ! is 
the controverted doctrine, so warmly asserted ami so bitterly 
decried under the name of" imputed righteousness." — 
Our learned Archbishop, yon see. adopts it. ; and it is on this 
account principally, thai by many of our leading churchmen 
his orthodoxy has been more than questioned, and his name 
put in the list of proscribed divines, as a Calvinist. That 
Leighton attached a definite sense to the words above quoted, 
it would be uncandid to doubt ; and the general spirit of his 
writings leads me to presume that it was compatible with tl a 
eternal distinction between things and persons, and therefore 
opposed to modern Calvinism. But wliat it was, I have not 
(I own) been able to discover. The sense, however, in 
which I think he might have received this doctrine, and in 
which I avow myself a believer in i*. T shall have an ©ppartu- 



139 AIDS To REFLECTION. 

nity of showing in another place. My present object fe to 
open out the road by the removal of prejudices, so far at least 
as to throw some disturbing doubts on the secure taking-for 
granted, that the peculiar tenets of the Christian faith assert* 
ed in the articles and homilies of Our national Church are in 
contradiction to the common sense of mankind. And with 
this view, (and not in the arrogant expectation or wish, that 
a mere ipse dixit should be received for argument) I here 
avow my conviction, that the doctrine of imputed right- 
eousness, rightly and scripturally interpreted, is so far 
from being either irrational or immoral, that reason itself 
prescribes the idea in order to give a meaning and an ulti- 
mate object to morality ; and that the moral law in the con- 
science demands its reception in order to give reality and sub- 
stantive existence to the idea presented by the reason. 

APHORISM XXXVI 

LEIGHTON; 

Your blessedness is not, — no, believe it, it is not where 
most of you seek it, in things below you. How can that be? 
It must be a higher good to make you happy. 

COMMENT 

Every rank of creatures, as it ascends in the scale of crea- 
tion, leaves death behind it or under it. The metal at its 
height of being seems a mute prophecy of the coming veget- 
ation, into a mimic semblance of which it crystalizes. The 
blossom and flower, the acme of vegetable life, divides into 
correspondent organs with reciprocal functions, and by in- 
stinctive motions and approximations seems impatient of that 
fixure, by which it is differenced in kind from the flower-sha- 
ped Psyche, that flutters with free wing above it. And won- 
derfully in the insect realm doth the irritability, the proper 
seat of instinct, while yet the nascent sensibility is subordina- 
ted thereto — most wonderfully, I say, doth the muscular life 
in the insect, and the musculo-arterial in the bird, imitate 



MORAL AM) RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. 140 

and typically rehearse the adaptive understanding, yea, and 
the moral affections and charities, 6f man. Let lis carry our- 
selves back, in spirit, to the mysterious week, the teeming 
work days of the creator : as they rose in vision before the 
eye of the inspired historian of the generations of the heaven 
and the earth, in the days that the Lord God made the earth 
and the heavens. And who that hath watched their ways 
with an understanding heart, could, as the vision evolving still 
advanced towards him, contemplate the filial and loyal bee ; 
the home-building, wedded, and divorcelcss swallow ; and 
above all the manifoldly intelligent* ant tribes, with their 
commonwealths and confederacies, their warriors and miners, 
the husbandfolk, that fold in their tiny flocks on the honeyed 
leaf, and the virgin sisters with the holy instincts of maternal 
love, detached and in selfless purity — -and not say to himself, 
Behold the shadow of approaching humanity, and the sun ris- 
ing from behind, in the kin, Ming morn of creation ! Thus all 
lower natures find their highest good in semblinces and seek- 
ings of that which is higher and better. All things strive to 
ascend, and ascend in their striving. And shall man alone 
stoop? Shall his pursuits and desires, the reflections of his 
inward life, be like the reflected image of a tree on the edge 
of a pool, that grows downward, and seeks a mock heaven in 
the unstable element beneath it, in neighbourhood with the 
slim water-weeds, and oozy bottom-grass that are yet better 
than itself and more noble, in as far as substances that appear 
as shadows arc preferable to shadows mistaken for substance J 
No! it must be a higher good to make you happy. While 
you labour for anything below your proper humanity, you 
seek a happy lite in the region of death. Well saith the mor- 
al poet — 

Unless above himself lie can 
Erect himself, how mean a thing is man ' 

" Srr Huber on Bees, and on Ants. 



J41 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

APHORISM XXXV II. 

LEIGHTOH 

There is an imitation of men that is impious and wicked, 
which consists in taking the copy of their sins. Again, there 
is an imitation which though not so grossly evil, yet, is poor 
and servile, being in mean things, yea, sometimes descending 
to imitate the very imperfections of others, as fancying some 
comeliness in them : as some of Basil's scholars, who imitated 
his slow speaking, which he had a little in the extreme, and 
could not help. But this is always laudable, and worthy of 
the best minds, to be imitators of that which is good, where- 
soever they find it ; for that stays not in any man's person, 
as the ultimate pattern, but rises f o the highest grace, being 
man's nearest likeness to God, His image and resemblance, 
bearing his stamp and superscription, and belonging peculiar- 
ly to Him, in what hand soever it be found, as carrying the 
mark of no other owner but Him. 

APHORISM XXXVIII. 

' LE1GHTOV. 

Those who think themselves high-spirited, and will bear 
least, as they speak, are often, and even by that, forced to bow 
most, or to burst under it ; while humility and meekness es- 
cape many a burden, and many a blow, always keeping peace 
within, and often without too. 

APHORISM XXXIX. 

LEICHT3N. 

Our condition is universally exposed to fears and troubles, 
and no man is so stupid but he studies and projects for some 
fence against them, some bulwark to break the incursion of 
evils, and so to bring his mind to some ease, ridding it of the 
fear of them. Thus men seek safety in the greatness or 
multitude, or supposed faithfulness, of friends ; they seek by 
any means to be strongly underset this way, to have many, 
and powerful, and trust-worthy friends. But wiser men. 



MORAL AN!> RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. 143 

perceiving the unsafety and vanity of these and all external 
things, have cast about for some higher course. They see a 
necessity of withdrawing a man from externals, which do 
nothing but mock and deceive those most who trust most to 
them ; but they cannot tell whither to direct him. The best 
of them bring him to himself, and think to quiet him so, but 
the truth is, he finds as little to support him there ; there is 
nothing truly strong enough within him, to hold out against 
the many sorrows and fears which still from without do as- 
sault him. So then, though it is well done, to call off a man 
from outward things, as moving sands, that he build not on 
them, yet, this is not enough ; for his own spirit is as unset- 
tled a piece as is in all the world, and must have some higher 
strength than its own, to fortify and fix it. This is the way 
that is here taught, Fear not their fear, but sanctify the 
Lord your God in your hearts ; and if you can attain 
this latter, the former will follow of itself. 

APHORISM XL. 

WORLDLY TROUBLES, IDOLS. 

LEIGHTON. 

The too ardent love or self-willed desire of power, or wealth, 
or credit in the world, is (an Apostle has assured us) idola- 
try. Now among the words or synonimes for idols, in the 
Hebrew language, there is one that in its primary sense sig- 
nifies troubles (tegirim), other two that signify terrors 
(miphletzeth and emim). And so it is certainly. All our 
idles prove so to us. They fill us with nothing but anguish 
and troubles, with cares and fears, that are good for nothing 
but to be fit punishments of the folly, out of which they arise. 

APHORISM XLI. 

ON THE RIGHT TREATMENT OF INFIDELS. 

) EIGHTON AM' ( hi | V.IDGE. 

A regardless contempt of infidel writings is usually the lit- 



1. 43 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

test answer ; Spreta vilescercnt. But where the holy pro- 
fession of Christians is likely to receive either the main or the 
indirect blow, and a word of defence may do any thing to 
ward it off, there we ought not to spare to do it. 

Christian prudence goes a great way in the regulating of 
this. Some are not capable of receiving rational answers, 
especially in divine things ; they were not only lost upon them, 
but religion dishonored by the contest. 

Of this sort are the vulgar railers at religion, the foul-mouth- 
ed beliefs of the Christian faith and history. Impudently false 
and slanderous assertions can be met only by assertions of 
their impudent and slanderous falsehood : and Christians will 
not, must not, condescend to this. How can mere railing 
be answered by them who are forbidden to return a railing 
answer ? Whether, or on what provocations, such offenders 
may be punished or coerced on the score of incivility, and 
ill-neighbourhood, and for abatement of a nuisance, as in the 
case of other scolds and endangerers of the public peace, 
must be trusted to the discretion of the civil magistrate. — 
Even then, there is danger of giving them importance, and 
flattering their vanity, by attracting attention to their works, 
if the punishment be slight ; and if severe, of spreading far 
and wide their reputation as martyrs, as the smell of a dead 
dog at a distance is said to change into that of musk. Ex- 
perience hitherto seems to favour the plan of treating these 
betes puantes and enfans cle Diable, as their four-footed 
brethren, the skunk and squash are treated* by the American 
woodmen, who turn their backs upon the fetid intruder, and 

* About the end of the same year (says Kalm), another of these animals 
(Mephitis Americana) crept into our cellar; but did not exhale the smallest 
scent, because it was not disturbed. A foolish old woman, however, who per- 
ceived it at night, by the shining, and thought, I suppose, that it would set 
the world on fire, killed it : and at that moment its stench began to spread. 

We reccommend this anecdote to the consideration of sundry old women, 
on this side of the Atlantic, who, though they do not wear the appropriate 
garment, are worthy to sit in their committee -room, like Biokerstaff in the 
Tatler, under the canopy of their grandam's hoop-petticoat. 



MORAL AM) RELIGIOUS APH0KISM9. 144 

make appear not to see him, even at the cost of suffering him 
to regale on the favourite viand of these animals, the brains 
of a stray goose or crested thraso of the dunghill. At all e- 
vents, it is degrading to the majesty, and injurious to the 
character of religion, to make its safety the plea for their 
punishment, or at all to connect the name of Christianity with 
the castigation of indecencies that properly belong to the 
beadle, and the perpetrators of which would have equally de-> 
served his lash, though the religion of their fellow-citizens, 
thus assailed by them, had been that of Fo or Juggernaut, 

On the other hand, we are to answer every one that in? 
quires a reason, or an account ; which supposes something 
receptive of it. We ought to judge ourselves engaged to 
give it, be it an enemy, if he will hear ; if it gain him not, it 
may in part convince and cool ; much more, should it be one 
who ingenuously inquires for satisfaction, and possibly inclines 
to receive the truth, but has been prejudiced by misrepre- 
sentations of it, 

APHORISM XLI1 

PASSION NO FRIEND TO TRUTH. 

LEIGHTON. 

Truth needs not the service of passion ; yea, nothing so 
disserves it, as passion when set to serve it. The Spirit of 
truth is withal the Spirit of meekness. The Dove that rest- 
ed on that great champion of truth, who is The Truth itself, 
is from Him derived to the lovers of truth, and they ought to 
seek the participation of it. Imprudence makes some kind 
of Christians lose much of their labour, in speaking for reli- 
gion, and drive those further off, whom they would draw 
into it. 

The confidence that attends a Christian's belief makes the 
believer not fear men, to whom he answers, but still he fears 
his God, for whom he answers, and whose interest is chief in 
those things he speaks of. The soul that hath the deepest 
sense ofspiritual things, and the truest knowledge of God, is 
to 



145 AIDS TO hEFLECTION. 

most afraid to miscarry in speaking of Him, most tender and 
wary how to acquit itself when engaged to speak of and for 
God.* 

APHORISM XLI1I. 

ON THE CONSCIENCE. 

LElGHTOIf. 

It is a fruitless verbal debate, whether conscience be a fac- 
ulty or a habit. When all is examined, conscience will be 
found to be no other than the mind of a man, under the no- 
tion of a particular reference to himself and his own actions. 

COMMENT. 

What conscience is, and that it is the ground and antece- 
dent of human for self-)consciousness, and not any modifica- 
tion of the latter, I have shown at large in a work announced 
for the press and described in the chapter following. I have 
selected the preceding extract as an exercise for reflection ; 
and because I think that in too closely following Thomas a 
Kempis, the Archbishop has strayed from his own judgment. 
The definition, for instance, seems to say all, and in fact says 
nothing ; for if I asked, How do you define the human mind ? 
the answer must at least contain, if not consist of, the words, 
" a mind capable of conscience." For conscience is no sy- 
nonyme of consciousness, nor any mere expression of the 
same as modified by the particular object. On the contrary, 



* To the same purpose are the two following sentences from Hilary. 

Etiam qucc pro religions dicimus, cum grandi metu t.t discipline! dicere 
debemus. — Hilarius dc Trinit. Lib. 7. 

A'on relictus est hominum cloquiis de Dei rebus aliius quam Dei scrmo. — 
Idem. 

The latter, however, must he taken with certain qualifications and ex- 
ceptions : as when any two or more texts are in apparent contradiction, and 
it is required to state a truth that comprehends and reconciles both, and 
which, of course, cannot be expressed in the words of either, — for example, 
the Filial subordination (My father is greater than I), in the equal Deity 
(My father and I are one). 



MO HAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. H6 

a consciousness properly human (that is self-consciousness), 
with the souse of moral responsibility, pre-supposes the con- 
science as its antecedent condition and ground. Lastly, the 
sentence, "It is a fruitless verbal debate," is an assertion of 
the same complexion with the contemptuous sneers at verbal 
criticism by the cotemporaries of Bentley. In questions of 
philosophy or divinity that have occupied the learned and 
been the subjects of many successive controversies, for one 
instance of mere logomachy I could bring ten instances of 
logoda.-daly, or verbal legerdemain, which have perilously 
confirmed prejudices, and withstood the advancement of truth 
in consequence of the neglect of verbal debate, that is, strict 
discussion of terms. In whatever sense however, the term 
conscience may be used, the following aphorism is equally 
true and important. It is worth noticing, likewise, that Leigh- 
ton himself in a following page, (vol. ii. p. 97), tells us, that 
a good conscience is the root of a good conversation : and 
then quotes from St. Paul a text Titus i. 15, in which the 
mind and the conscience are expressly distinguished. 

APHORISM XLIV. 

THE LIGHT OF KNOWLEDGE A NECESSARY ACCOMPANIMENT 
OF A GOOD CONSCIENCE. 

rrtoHTos, 

If you would have a good conscience, you must by all 
means have so much light, so much knowledge of the will of 
God, as may regulate you, and show you your way, may teach 
you how to do, and speak, and think, as in His presence. 

APHORISM XLV. 

VET THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE RULE, THOUGH ACCOMPANIED BY 
AN EXDKAVOUR TO ACCOMMODATE OUR CONDUCT TO THIS 
RCLE, WILL NOT OF ITSELF FORM A GOOD C<>NS< ITNCE. 

f.EIGHTOH. 

To set the outward actions right, though with an honest 



147 A1US TO REFLECTION. 

intention, and not so to regard and find out the inward dis- 
order of the heart, whence that in the actions flows, is but 
to be still putting the index of a clock right with your finger, 
while it is foul, or out of order within, which is a continual 
business and does no good. Oh ! but a purified conscience 
a soul renewed and refined in its temper and affections, will 
make things go right without, in all the duties and acts of 
our calling. 

APHORISM XLVI. 
THE DEPTH OF THK CONSCIENCE* 

How deeply seated the conscience is in the human soul, is 
seen in the effect which sudden calamities produce on guilty 
men, even when unaided by any determinate notion or fears 
of punishment after death. The wretched criminal, as one 
rudely awakened from a long sleep, bewildered with the new 
light, and half recollecting, half striving to recollect, a fearful 
something, he knows not what, but which he will recognize 
as soon as he hears the name, already interprets the calami- 
ties into judgments, executions of a sentence passed by an 
invisible judge ; as if the vast pyre of the last judgment were 
already kindled in an unknown distance, and some flashes of 
it darting forth at intervals beyond the rest, were flying and 
lighting upon the face of his soul. The calamity, may consist 
in los3 of fortune, or character, or .reputation ; but you hear 
no regrets from him, Remorse extinguishes all regret ; and 
remorse is the implicit creed of the guilty. 

APHORISM XLVII. 

LEIGHTON AND COLERIDGE. 

God hath suited every creature He hath made with a con- 
venient good to which it tends, and in the obtainment of 
Which it rests and is satisfied. Natural bodies have all their 
own natural place, whither, if not hindered, they move inces- 
santly till they be in it ; and they declare, by resting there 
that they are (as I may say) where they would be. Sensi- 



MORAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS 148 

tivc creatures are carried to seek a sensitive good, as agreea- 
ble to their rank in being, and attaining that, aim no further. 
Now in this is the excellency of man, that he is made capa- 
ble of a communion with his Maker, and, because capable of 
it, is unsatisfied without it? the soul, being cut out (so to 
speak) to that largeness, cannot be filled with less. Though 
he is fallen from his right to that good, and from all right de- 
sire of it. yet, not from a capacity of it, no, nor from a ne- 
cessity of it, for the answering and filling of his capacity. 

Though the heart once gone from God turns continually 
further away from Him till it be renewed, yet, even in that 
wandering, it retains that natural relation to God, as its cen- 
tre, that it hath no true rest elsewhere, nor can by any means 
find it. It is made for Him, and is therefore still restless till 
it meet with Him 

It is true, the natural man takes much pains to quiet his 
heart by other things, and digests many vexations with hopes 
of contentment in the end and accomplishment of some de- 
sign he hath ; but still the heart misgives. Many times he 
attains not the thing he seeks ; but if he do, yet he never at- 
tains the satisfaction he seeks and expects in it, but only 
learns from that to desire something further, and still hunts 
on after a fancy,drives his own shadow before him, and nev- 
er overtakes it ; and if he did, yet it is but a shadow. And 
so, in running from God, besides the sad end, he carries an 
interwoven punishment with his sin, the natural disquiet and 
vexation of his spirit, fluttering to and fro, and finding no rest 
for the sole of his foot ; the waters of inconstancy and van 
ity covering the whole face of the earth. 

These things are too gross and heavy. The soul, the im- 
mortal soul, descended from heaven, must either be more hap- 
py or remain miserable. The highest, the uncreated Spirit, 
is the proper good the Father of spirits, that pure and full 
good which raises the soul above itself ; whereas all other 
things draw it down below itself. So, then, it is never well 
with the soul, but when it is near unto God. yea, in its un- 



149 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

ion with Him, married to Him ; mismatching itself elsewhere 
it hath never any thing but shame and sorrow. All that for- 
sake Thee shall he ashamed, says the Prophet, Jer. xvii. 13 ; 
and the Psalmist, They that are far off from Thee shall per- 
ish, Psal. lx.viii. 27. And this is indeed our natural misera- 
ble condition, and it is often expressed this way, by estranged- 
ness and distance from God. 

The same sentiments are to be found in the works of Pa_ 
gan philosophers and moralists. Well then may they be 
made a subject of reflection in our days. And well may the 
pious deist, if such a character now exists, reflect that Chris- 
tianity alone both teaches the way, and provides the means, 
of fulfilling the obscure promises of this great instinct for all 
men, which the philosophy of boldest pretensions confined to 
the sacred few. 

APHORISM XLVIII. 

A. CONTRACTED SPHERE, OR WHAT IS CALLED RETIRING FROM 
THE BUSINESS OF THE WORLD, NO SECURITY FROM THE 
SPIRIT OF THE WORLD. 

LKIGHTOS. 

The heart may be engaged in a little business as much, if 
thou watch it not, as in many and great affairs. A man 
may drown in a little brook or pool, as well as in a great, rivor, 
if he be down and plunge himself into it, and put his head 
under water. Some care thou must have, that thou mayest 
not care. Those things that are thorns indeed, thou must 
make a hedge of them, to keep out those temptations that 
accompany sloth, and extreme want that waits on it ; but let 
them be the hedge : suffer them not to grow within the gar- 
den. 



MORAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. 150 

APHORISM XLIX. 

ON CHURCH-GOING, AS A PART OF RELIGIOUS MORALITY, 
WHEN NOT IN REFERENCE TO A SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 

LEIGHTON. 

It is a strange folly in multitudes of us, to set ourselves no 
mark, to propound no end in the hearing of the Gospel. — 
The merchant sails not merely that he may sail, but for traf- 
fic, and traffics that he may be rich. The husbandman 
plows not merely to keep himself busy, with no further end, 
but plows that he may sow, and sows that he may reap with 
advantage. And shall we do the most excellent and fruitful 
work fruitlessly — hear, only to hear, and look no further? This 
is indeed a great vanity and a great misery, to lose that labour 
and gain nothing by it, which duly used, would be of all oth- 
ers most advantageous and gainful; and yet all meetings are 
full of this ! 

APHORISM L. 

ON THE HOPES AND SELF-SATISFACTION OF A RELIGIOUS 

MORALIST, INDEPhNDENT OF A SPIRITUAL FAITH ON 

WHAT ARE THEY GROUNDED? 

LEIGIITON. 

There have been great disputes one way or another, about 
the merit of good works ; but I truly think that they who have 
laboriously engaged in them have been very idly, though very 
eagerly, employed about nothing, since the more sober of the 
schoolmen themselves acknowledge there can be no such 
thing as meriting from the blessed God, in the human, or, to 
speak more accurately, in any created nature whatsoever ; 
nay, so far from any possibility of merit, there can be no 
room for reward any otherwise than of the sovereign pleasure 
and gracious kindness of God ; and the more ancient wri- 
ters, when they use the word merit, mean nothing by it but a 
certain correlate to the reward which God both promises and 
bestows of mere grace and benignity. Otherwise, in order 



151 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

to constitute what is properly called merit, many things must 
concur, which no man in his senses will presume to attribute 
to human works, though ever so excellent ; particularly, that 
the thing done must not previously be matter of debt, and 
that it be entire, or our own act, unassisted by foreign aid ; it 
must also be perfectly good, ana it must bear an adequate 
proportion to the reward claimed in consequence of it. If all 
these things do not concur, the act cannot possibly amount 
to merit. Whereas I think no one will venture to assert, that 
any one of these can take place in any human action what- 
ever. But why should I enlarge here, when one single cir- 
cumstance overthrows all those titles : the most righteous of 
mankind would not be able to stand, if his works were weigh- 
ed in the balance of strict justice ; how much less then could 
they deserve that immense glory which is now in question ! 
Nor is this to be denied only concerning the unbeliever and 
the sinner, but concerning the righteous and pious believer, 
who is not only free from all the guilt of his former impeni- 
tence and rebellion, but endowed with the gift of the Spirit. 
For the time is come t licit judgment must begin at the house 
of God : and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of 
them that obey not the gospel of God 1 And if the right- 
eous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sin- 
ner appear? 1 Peter iv. 17, 18, The Apostle's interrogation 
expresses the most vehement negation, and signifies that no 
mortal in whatever degree he is placed, if he be called to the 
strict examination of divine justice, without daily and repeat- 
ed forgiveness, could be able to keep his standing, and much 
less could he arise to that glorious height. 'That merit," 
says Bernard, ' on which my hope relies, consists in these 
three things ; the love of adoption, the truth of the promise, 
and the power of its performance.' This is the three-fold 
cord which cannot be broken. 

COMMENT. 

Often have I heard it said by advocates for the Socinian 



MORAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. 152 

scheme — True ! we arc all sinners ; but even in the Old 
Testament God has promised forgiveness on repentance. — 
One of the Fathers (I forget which) supplies the retort-^- 
True ! God has promised pardon on penitence : but has he 
promised penitence on sin ? He that repenteth shall be for- 
given : but where it is said, He that sinneth shall repent ? 
But repentance, perhaps, the repentance required in Scrip* 
ture, the passing into a new and contrary principle of action, 
this mktanoia,* isln the sinner's own power ? at his own lik- 
ing ? He has but to open his eyes to the sin, and the tears 
are close at hand to wash it away ! Verily, the exploded 
tenet of transubstantiation is scarcely at greater variance with 
the common sense and experience of mankind, or borders 
more closely on a contradiction in terms, than this volunteer 
transmentation, this self-change, as the easy f means of self- 
salvation ! But the reflections of our evangelical author on 
this subject will appropriately commence the aphorisms relate 
ing to spiritual religion. 

* Mtruvoia, the New Testament word, which we render by repentance, 
compounded of «stu, trans, and m^, mens, the spirit, or practical reason. 

t May I without offence be permitted to record the very appropriate title, 
with which a stern humorist lettered a collection of Unitarian tracts ?— 
" Salvation made easy ; or, Every man his own Redeemer," 



•!U 



ELEMENTS OF RELIGIOUS PHILOSOPHY, 

PRELIMINARY TO THE APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL 
RELIGION. 

Philip saith unto him: Lord, shcic us the Father, and it sufficeth vs. Jesus 
saith unto him, He that hath seen me hath seen the Father ; and how 
sayest thou then, Show us the Father ? Belicvest thou not th<d I am in the 
Father and the Father in me ? And I will pray the father and lie shall give 
you another Comforter, even the Spirit of Truth : whom the world cannot re- 
ceive, because it secth him not, neither knoweth him. But ye know him, for 
he dioclleth with you and shall he in you. And in that day ye shall knoio 
that Tarn in my Father, and ye in me and I in you. John xiv. 8, 9, 10, 
16, 17, 20. 

PRELIMINARY. 

If there be aught spiritual in man, the will must be such. 

If there be a will, th^re must be a spirituality in man. 

I suppose both positions granted. The reader admits the 
reality of the power, agency, or mode of being expressed in 
the term, spirit ; and the actual existence of a will. He sees 
clearly that the idea of the former is necessary to the conceiv- 
abilily of the latter ; and that, vice versa, in asserting the fact 
of the latter lie presumes and instances the truth of the for- 
mer — just as in our common and received systems of natural 
philosophy, the being of imponderable matter is assumed to 
render the lode-stone intelligible, and the fact of the lode- 
stone adduced to prove the reality of imponderable matter. 

In short, I suppose the reader, whom I now invite to the 
third and last division of the work, already disposed to reject 
for himselt and his human brethren the insidious title of 
" Nature's noblest animal," or to retort it as the unconscious 
irony of the Epicurean poet on the annualizing tendency of 
his own philosophy. I suppose him convinced, that there is 



ELEMENTS OF RELIGIOUS PHILOSOPHY. 154 

more in man than can be rationally referred to the life of na- 
ture and the mechanism of organization ; that he has a will 
not included in this mechanism : and that the will is in an es- 
pecial and pre-eminent sense the spiritual part of our human- 
ity. 

Unless, then, we have some distinct notion of the will, and 
some acquaintance with the prevalent errors respecting- the 
same, an insight into the nature of spiritual religion is scarce- 
ly possible ; and our reflections on the particular truths and 
evidences of a spiritual state will remain obscure, perplexed, 
and unsafe. To place my reader on this requisite vantage- 
ground, is the purpose of the following exposition. 

We have begun, as in geometry, with defining our terms ; 
and we proceed, like the geometricians, with stating our pos- 
tulates ; the difference being, that the postulates of geome- 
try no man can deny, those of moral science are such as no 
good man will deny. For it is not in our power to disclaim 
our nature as sentient beings ; but it is in our power to dis- 
claim our nature as moral beings. It is possible (barely pos- 
sible, I admit) that a man may have remained ignorant or 
unconscious of the moral law within him : and a man need 
only persist in disobeying the law of conscience to make it 
possible for himself to deny its existence, or to reject and re- 
pel it as a phantom of superstition. Were it otherwise, the 
Creed would stand in the same relation to morality as the 
multiplication table. 

This then is the distinction of moral philosophy — not that I 
begin with one or more assumptions ; for this is common to all 
science ; but — that I assume a something, the proof of which 
no man can give to another, yet every man may find for him- 
self. If any man assert that he can u not find it, I am bound 
to disbelieve him. I cannot do otherwise without unsettling 
the very foundations of my own moral nature. For I cither 
find it as an essential of the humanity common to him a id 
me : or I have not found it at all, except as an hypocondriast 
finds glass logs. If, on the other hand, ho will not find it. hr» 



155 



AIDS TO REFLECTION. 



excommunicates himself. He forfeits his personal rights, 
and becomes a thing : that is, one who may rightfully be 
employed, or used, as* means to an end, against his will, and 
without regard to his interest. 

All the significant objections of the Materialist, and Neces- 
sitarian are contained in the term, morality, all the objec- 
tions of the infidel in the term, religion. The very terms, I 
say, imply a something granted, which the objection suppos- 
es not granted. The term presumes what the objection de- 
nies, and in denying presumes the contrary. For it is most im- 
portant to observe that the reasoners on both sides commence 
by taking something for granted, our assent to which they 
ask or demand : that is both set off with an assumption in 
the form of a postulate. But the Epicurean assumes what 
according to himself he neither is or can be under any obli- 
gation to assume, and demands what he can have no right to 
demand : for he denies the reality of all obligation, the exist- 
ence of any right. If he use the words, right and obligation, 
he does it deceptively, and means only power and compul- 
sion. To overthrow the faith in aught higher or other than 
nature and physical necessity, is the very purpose of his argu- 
ment. He desires you only to take for granted, that all re- 
ality is included in nature, and he may then safely defy you 
toward off his conclusion — that nothing is excluded ! 

But as he cannot morally demand, neither can he rational- 
ly expect, your assent to these premises : for he cannot be 
ignorant, that the best and greatest of men have devoted 



* On this principle alone is it possible to justify capital, or ignominious 
punishments, or indeed any punishment not having the reformation of the 
criminal as one of its objects. Such punishments, like those inflicted on 
snicides, must be regarded as posthumous ; the wilful extinction of the 
moral and personal life being, for the purposes of punitive justice, equiva- 
lent to a wilful destruction of the natural life. If the speech of Judge Bur- 
net to the horse-stealer (You are not hanged for stealing a horse ; but, that 
horses may not be stolen) can be vindicated at all, it must be on this prin- 
ciple '. and not on the all-unsettling scheme of expedience, which is thean- 
archv of morals. 



ELEMENTS OF UELIGIOUS PIIILOSOP II V 150 

their lives to the enforcement of the contrary : that the vast 
majority of the human race in all ages and in all nations have 
believed in the contrary ; and that there is not a language on 
earth, in which he could argue, for ten minutes, in sup- 
port of his scheme, without sliding into words and phrases 
that imply the contrary. It has been said, that the Arabic 
has a thousand names for a lion ; but this would be a trifle 
compared with the number of superfluous words and useless 
synonymes that would be found in an index expurgatorius 
of any European dictionary constructed on the principles of a 
consistent and strictly consequential Materialism. 

The Christian likewise grounds his philosophy on asser- 
tions ; but with the best of all reasons for making them — 
namely, that he ought so to do. He asserts what he can 
neither prove, nor account for, nor himself comprehend ; but 
with the strongest inducements, that of understanding there- 
by whatever else it most concerns him to understand aright. 
And yet his assertions have nothing in them of theory or hy- 
pothesis ; but are in immediate reference to three ultimate 
facts ; namely, the reality of the law of conscience ; the 
existence of a responsible will, as the subject of that law ; 
and lastly, the existence of evil — of evil essentially such, not 
by accident of outward circumstances, not derived from its 
physical consequences, nor from any cause out of itself. — 
The first is a fact of consciousness ; the second a fact of rea- 
son necessarily concluded from the first ; and the third a fact 
of history interpreted by both. 

Omnia exeunt in mysterium, says a schoolman : that is, 
There is nothing, the absolute ground of which is not a mys- 
tery. The contrary were indeed a contradiction in terms : 
for how can that, which is to explain all things, be suscepti- 
ble of an explanation ? It would be to suppose the same 
thing first and second at the same time. 

If I rested here, I should merely have placed my creed in 
direct opposition to that of the Necessitarians, who assume 
(tor observe, both parties begin in an assumption and cannot 



157 aids to Reflection. 

do otherwise) that motives act on the will, as bodies act on 
bodies ; and that whether mind and matter are essentially the 
same, or essentially different, they are bothalike under one 
and the same law of compulsory causation. But this is far 
from exhausting my intention. I mean at the same time to 
oppose the disciples of Shaftesbury and those who, substitut- 
ing one faith for another, have been well called the pious De- 
ists of the last century, in order to distinguish them from the 
infidels of the present age, who persuade themselves, (for the 
thing itself is not possible) that they reject all faith. I de- 
clare my dissent from these too, because they imposed upon 
themselves an idea for a fact : a most sublime idea indeed, 
and so necessary to human nature, that without it no virtue 
is conceivable ; but still an idea. In contradiction to their 
splendid but delusory tenets, I profess a deep conviction that 
man was and is a fallen creature, not by accidents of bodily 
constitution or any other cause, which human wisdom in a 
course of ages might be supposed capable of removing ; but 
as diseased in his will, in that will which is the true and only 
strict synonyme of the word, I, or the intelligent self. Thus 
at each of these two opposite roads (the philosophy of Hobbes 
and that of Shaftesbury.) I have placed a directing post, in- 
forming my fellow travellers, that on neither of these roads 
can they see the truths to which I would direct their atten- 
tion. 

But the place of starting was the meeting of four roads, 
and one only was the right road. I proceed therefore to pre- 
clude the opinion of those likewise, who indeed agree with 
me as to the moral responsibility of man in opposition to 
Hobbes and the anti-moralists, and that he is a fallen crea- 
ture, essentially diseased, in opposition to Shaftesbury and 
the misrepresenters of Plato ; but who differ from me in ex- 
aggerating the diseased weakness of the will into an absolute 
privation of all freedom, thereby making moral responsibility, 
not a mystery above comprehension, but a direct contradic- 
tion, of which we do distinctly comprehend the absurdity 



ELEMENTS OF RELIGIOUS riJILOSOPIIT. 158 

Among the consequences of this doctrine, is that direful one 
of swallowing up all the attributes of the Supreme Being in 
the one attribute of infinite power, and thence deducing that 
things are good and wise because they were created, and not 
created through wisdom and goodness. Thus too the awful 
attribute of justice is explained away into a mere right of ab- 
solute property ; the sacred distinction between filings and 
persons erased: and the selection of persons for virtue and vice 
in this life, and for eternal happiness or misery in the next, is 
represented as the result of a mere will acting in the blind- 
ness and solitude of its own infinity. The title of a work 
written by the great and pious Boyle is " Of the awe, which 
the human mind owes (o the Supreme Reason." This, in 
the language of these gloomy doctors, must be translated in- 
to — " The horror, which a being capable of eternal pleasure 
or pain is compelled to feel at the idea of an Infinite Power, 
about to inflict the latter on an immense majority of human 
souls, without any power on their part either to prevent it or 
the actions which are (not indeed its causes but) its assigned 
signals, and preceding links of the same iron chain !" 

Against these tenets I maintain, that a will conceived sep- 
arately from intelligence is a nonentity, and a mere phan- 
tasm of abstraction ; and that a will, the state of which docs 
in no sense originate in its own act, is an absolute contradic- 
tion. It might be an i:stict,an impulse or plastic power, and, 
if accompanied with consciousness, a desire ; but a will it 
could not be. And this every hunvm being knows with e- 
qual clearness, though different minds may reflect on it with 
different degrees of distinctness ; for who would not smile at 
the notion of a rose willing to put forth its buds and expand 
them into flowers ? That such a phrase would be deemed a 
poetic license proves the difference in the things : for all met- 
aphors are grounded on an apparent likeness of things essen- 
tially different I utterly disclaim the notion, that any hu- 
man intelligence, with whatever power it might manifest it- 
self, is alone adequate to the office of restoring health to the 



159 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

will : but at the same time I deem it impious and absurd to 
hold that the Creator would have given us the faculty of rea- 
son, or that the Redeemer would in so many varied forms of 
argument and persuasion have appealed to it, if it had been 
either totally useless or wholly impotent. Lastly, I find all 
these several truths reconciled and united in the belief, that 
the imperfect human understanding can be effectually exert- 
ed only in subordination to, and in a dependent alliance with, 
the means and aidances supplied by the All-perfect and Su- 
preme Reason ; but that under these conditions it is not only 
an admissible, but a necessary, instrument of bettering both 
ourselves and others. 

We may now proceed to our reflections on the spirit of re- 
ligion. The first three or four aphorisms I have selected 
from the theological works of Dr. Henry More, a contempo- 
rary of Archbishop Leighton. and like him held in suspicion 
by the Calvinists of that time as a Latitudinarian and Plat- 
onizing divine, and who probably, like him, would have been 
arraigned as a Calvinist by the Latitudinarians (I cannot 
say Platonists) of this day, had the suspicion been equally 
groundless. One or two I have ventured to add from my 
own reflections. < The purpose, however, is the same in all — 
that of declaring, in the first place, what spiritual religion is 
not, what is not a religious spirit, and what are not to be 
deemed influences of the Spirit. If after these disclaimers I 
shall without proof be charged by any with renewing or 
favouring the errors of the Familists, Vanists, Seekers, Beh- 
menists, or by whatever other names Church history records 
the poor bewildered enthusiasts, who in the swarming time of 
our Republic turned the facts of the Gospel into allegories, 
and superseded the written ordinances of Christ by a preten- 
ded teaching and sensible presence of the Spirit, I appeal 
against them to their own consciences as wilful slanderers. — 
But if with proof, I have in these aphorisms signed and seal- 
ed my own condemnation. 

" These things I could not forbear to write. For the light 



ELEMENTS OF RELIGIOUS PHILOSOPHY. 160 

within me, that is, my reason and conscience, docs assure me, 
that the ancient and Apostolic faith according to the histor- 
ical meaning thereof, and in the literal sense of the Creed, is 
solid and true : and that Familism in its fairest form and un- 
der whatever disguise, is a smooth tale ti seduce the simple 
from their allegiance to Christ." 

Henry More. 



21 



161 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 



APHORISMS. 

ON SP IRITUAL REL I G ION. 

And here it will not be impertinent to observe, that what the eldest Greek 
philosophy entitled the Reason (R~or—) and ideas, the philosophic Apos- 
tle names the Spirit and truths spiritually discerned : while to those who 
in the pride of learning or in the overweening meanness of modern met- 
aphysics decry the doctrine of the Spirit in man and its possible commun- 
ion with the Holy Spirit, as vulgar enthusiasm, I submit the following 
sentences from a Pagan philosopher, a nobleman and a minister of state 
— " Ita dico, Lucili, sneer intra nos Spiritvs scdet, ma.lorum bonorumqus 
nostrorum observat.or ct citstos. Hie prout a nobis tractatus est ita nos ipse 
tractat. Bonus vir sine Deo nemo est " Se.neca. Epist. xli. 

APHORISM I. 

H. MORE. 

Every one is to give a reason of his faith ; but priests and 
ministers more punctually than any, their province being to 
make good every sentence of the Bible to a rational inquirer 
into the truth of these oracles. Enthusiasts find it an easy 
thing to heat the fancies of unlearned and unreflecting hear- 
ers ; but when a sober man would be satisfied of the grounds 
from whence they speak, he shall not have one syllable or 
the least tittle of a pertinent answer. Only they will talk big 
of the Spirit, and inveigh against reason with bitter reproach- 
es, calling it carnal or fleshly, though it be indeed no soft flesh, 
but enduring and penetrant steel, even the sword of the Spir- 
it, and such as pierces to the heart. 

APHORISM II 

H. MOKE. 

There are two very bad things in this resolving of men's 
faith and practice into the immediate suggestion of a Spirit 
not acting on our understandings, or rather into the illumin- 



ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. J 6 J 

ation of such a Spirit as they can give no account of, such as 
does not enlighten their reason or enable them to render their 
doctrine intelligible to others. First, it defaces and makes 
useless that part of the image of God in us, which we call rea- 
son ; and secondly, it takes away that advantage, which rais- 
es Christianity above all other religions, that she dare appeal 
to so solid a faculty. 

APHORISM III. 

It is the glory of the Gospel charter and the Christian con- 
stitution, that its author and head is the Spirit of truth, essen- 
tial Reason as well as absolute and incomprehensible Will. 
Like a just monarch, he refers even his own causes to the 
judgment of his high courts. — He has his King's Bench in 
the reason, his Court of Enquiry in the conscience ; that the 
representative of his majesty and universal justice, this the 
nearest to the king's heart, and the dispenser of h'rs particu- 
lar decrees. lie has likewise his Court of Common Pleas in 
the understanding, his Court of Exchequer in the prudence. 
The laws are his laws. And though by signs and miracles 
he has mercifully condescended to interline here and there 
with his own hand the great statute-book, which he had dic- 
tated to his amanuensis, Nature; yet has he been graciously 
pleased to forbid our receiving as the king's mandates aught 
that is not stamped with the Great Seal of the conscience, 
and countersigned by the reason. 

APHORISM IV. 

ON AN UNLEARNED MINISTRY, UNDER PRETENCE OF A CALL OT 
THE SPIRIT, AND INWARD GRACES SUPERSKDING OUTWARD 
HELPS. 

n. iior.r.. 
Tell me, ye high-flown perfectionists, ye boasters of the 
light within you, could the highest perfection of your inward 
light ever show to you the history of pnst a^es, thft state of th« 



163 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

World at present, the knowledge of arts and tongues, without 
books or teachers ? How then can you understand the pro- 
vidence of God, or the age, the purpose, the fulfilment of 
prophecies, or distinguish such as have been fulfilled from 
those to the fulfilment of which we are to look forward. — - 
How can you judge concerning the authenticity and uncor- 
ruptedness of the Gospels, and the other sacred Scriptures ? 
And how without this knowledge can you support the truth 
bf Christianity ? How can you either have, or give a reason 
for, the faith which you profess ? This light within, that 
loves darkness, and would exclude those excellent gifts of 
God to mankind, knowledge and understanding, what is it 
but a sullen self-sufficiency within you, engendering con- 
tempt of superiors, pride and a spirit of division, and induc- 
ing you to reject for yourselves, and to undervalue in others, 
the helps without, which the grace of God has provided and 
appointed for his Church — nay, to make them grounds or 
pretexts of your dislike or suspicion of Christ's ministers who 
have fruitfully availed themselves of the helps afforded them ? 

APHORISM V. 

H. MORE. 

There are wanderers, whom neither pride nor a perverse hu- 
mour have led estray ; and whose condition is such, that I 
think few more worthy of a man's best directions. For the 
more imperious sects having put such unhandsome vizards on 
Christianity, and the sincere milk of the word having been 
every where so sophisticated by the humours and inventions 
of men, it has driven these anxious melancholists to seek for 
a teacher that cannot deceive, the voice of the eternal Word 
within them ; to which if they be faithful, they assure them- 
selves it will be faithful to them in return. Nor would this 
be a groundless presumption, if they had sought this voice in 
the reason and the conscience, with the Scripture articulat- 
ing the samp, instead of giving heed to their fancy and mis- 



ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 164 

taking bodily disturbances, and the vapors resulting there- 
from, for inspiration and the teaching of the Spirit. 

APHORISM VI. 

HACKF.T. 

When every man is his own end, all things will come 
to a bad end. Blessed were those days, when every man 
thought himself rich and fortunate by the good success of the 
public wealth and glory. We want public souls, we want 
them. I speak it with compassion : there is no sin and abuse 
in the world that affects my thought so much. Every man 
thinks, that he is a whole commonwealth in his private fami- 
ly. Omnes quce sua sunt qucerunt. All seek their own. 

COMMENT. 

Selfishness is common to all ages and countries, In all 
ages self-seeking is the rule, and self-sacrifice the exception. 
But if to seek our private advantage in harmony with, and by 
the furtherance of, the public prosperity, and to derive a por- 
tion of our happiness from sympathy with the prosperity of 
our fellow-men — if -this be public spirit, it would be morose 
and querulous to pretend that there is any want of it in this 
country and at the present time. On the contrary, the num- 
ber of " public souls" and the general readiness to contribute 
to the public good, in science and in religion, in patriotism 
and in philanthropy, stand prominent* among the character- 



* The very marked, positive as well as comparative, magnitude and 
prominence of the bump, entitled benevolence (see Spurzheim's map of 
the human skull) oritheheadof the late Mr. John Thurtel, lias wofully 
unsettled the faith of many ardent phrenologists, and strengthened the 
previous doubts of a still greater number into utter disbelief. On my mind 
this fact (for a fact it is) produced the directest contrary effect; and inclin- 
ed me to suspect, fot the first time, that there may be some truth in the 
Spurzheimian scheme. Whether future craniologists may nut see cause 
to new-name this and one or two otherof these convex gnomons, is quite 
a different question. At present and according to the present use of words 
any such change would he premature ; and we musl he content to say, that 
Thurtel's benevolence was insufficiently modified by the unprotrusive and 
unindicated convolutes of the brain, thai secrete honesty and common- 



165 UDS TO REFLECTION. 

istics of this and the preceding generation. The habit of re- 
ferring actions and opinions to fixed laws ; convictions root- 
ed in principles ; thought, insight, system ;•— these, had the 
good Bishop lived in our times, would have been his desider- 
ata, and the theme of his complaints. " We want thinking 
souls, we want them." 

This and the three preceding extracts will suffice as pre- 
cautionary aphorisms. And here, again, the reader may ex- 
emplify the great advantages to be obtained from the habit 
of tracing the proper meaning and history of words. We 
need only recollect the common and idiomatic phrases in which 
the word "spirit" occurs in a physical or material sense (as, 
fruit has lost its spirit and flavour), to be convinced that its 
property is to improve, enliven, actuate some other thing, not 
constitute a thing in its own name. The enthusiast may find 
one exception to this where the material itself is called spirit. 
And when he calls to mind, how this spirit acts when taken 
alone by the unhappy persons who in their first exultation 
will boast that it is meat, drink, fire, and clothing to them all 
in one — when he reflects, that its properties are to inflame, 
intoxicate, madden, with exhaustion, lethargy, and atrophy 
for the sequels ; — well for him, if in some lucid interval he 
should fairly put the question to his own mind, how far this 
is analogous to his own case, and whether the exception does 
not confirm the rule. The letter without the spirit killeth ; 
but does it follow, that the spirit is to kill the letter ? To 
kill that which it is its appropriate office to enlighten ? 

However, where the ministry is not invaded, and the plain 
sense of the Scriptures is left undisturbed, and the believer 
looks for the suggestions of the Spirit only or cMefly in ap- 
plying particular passages to his own individual case and ex- 
igencies ; though in this there may be much weakness, some 
delusion and iminent danger of more, I cannot but join with 

sense. The organ of destructiveness was indireetlv protentiated by the ab- 
sence or imperfect developement of the glands of reason and conscience, 
in this " unfortunate gentleman '" 



O.N SPIUITI'AL KKLIGION. 



16G 



Henry More in avowing, that I feel knit to such a man in the 
bonds of a common faith far more closely, than to those who 
receive neither the letter nor the Spirit, turning the one into 
metaphor and oriental hyperbole, in order to explain away 
the other into the influence of motives suggested by their own 
understandings, and realized by their own strength. 



1(37 AIDS TO HEFLECT10N. 



APHORISMS 

ON THAT WHICH IS INDEED SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 

In the selection of the extracts that form the remainder of 
this volume and of the comments affixed, I had the following 
objects principally in view : — first, to exhibit the true and 
Scriptural meaning and intent of several articles of faith, that 
are rightly classed among the mysteries and peculiar doc- 
trines of Christianity : — secondly, to show the perfect ration- 
ality of these doctrines, and their freedom from all just objec- 
tion when examined by their proper organ, the reason and 
conscience of man : — lastly, to exhibit from the works of 
Leighton, who perhaps of all our learned Protestant theolo- 
gians best deserves the title of a spiritual divine, an instruc- 
tive and affecting picture of the contemplations, reflections, 
conflicts, consolations and monitory experiences of a philoso- 
phic and richly-gifted mind, amply stored with all the knowl- 
edge that books and long intercourse with men of the most 
discordant characters could give, under the convictions, im- 
pressions, and habits of a spiritual religion. 

To obviate a possible disappointment in any of my read- 
ers, who may chance to be engaged in theological studies, it 
may be well to notice, that in vindicating the peculiar tenets 
of our Faith, I have not entered on the doctrine of the Trin- 
ity, or the still profounder mystery of the origin of moral evil 
— and this for the reasons following, i. These doctrines 
are not (strictly speaking) subjects of reflection, in the prop- 
er sense of this word : and both of them demand a power 
and persistency of abstraction, and a previous discipline in 
the highest forms of human thought, which it would be un- 
wise, if not presumptuous, to expect from any, who require 
aids to reflection, or would be likely to seek them in the pres- 
ent work, 2. In my intercourse with men of various ranks 



ON SPIRITUAL Kt:Ll<;iON. 163 

and ages, I have found the far larger number of serious and 
inquiring- persons little, if at all, disquieted by doubts respect- 
ing articles of faith simply above their comprehension. It is 
only where the belief required of them jars with their moral 
feelings : where a doctrine, in the sense in which they have 
been taught to receive it, appears to contradict their clear 
notions of right and wrong, or to be at variance with the di- 
vine attributes of goodness and justice, that these men are 
surprised, perplexed, and alas ! not seldom offended and alien- 
ated. Such are the doctrines of arbitrary election and rep- 
robation ; the sentence to everlasting torment by an eternal 
and necessitating decree ; vicarious atonement, and the ne- 
cessity nf the abasement, agony and ignominious death of a 
most holy and meritorious person, to appease the wrath of 
God. Now it is more especially for such persons, unwilling 
sceptics, who believing earnestly ask help for their unbelief, 
that this volume was compiled, and the comments written : 
and therefore, to the Scripture doctrines, intended by the 
above mentioned, my principal attention has been directed. 
But lastly, the whole scheme of the Christian Faith, includ 
ing all the articles of belief common to the Greek and Latin, 
the Roman and the Protestant. Churches, with the threefold 
proof, that it is ideally, morally, and historically true, will be 
found exhibited and vindicated in a proportionally larger 
work, the principal labour of my life since manhood, and 
which might be entitled, "Assertion of religion, as necessarily 
involving revelation ; and of Christianity, as the only revela : 
tion of permanent and universal validity." 

APHORISM I 

LE1GH105. 

Where, if not in Christ, is the power that can persuade a 
sinner to return, that can bring home a heart to God ! 

Common mercies of God, though they have a leading fac- 
ulty to repentance, (Rom. ii. 4.) yet, the rebellious heart will 
not be led by them. The judgment* of God, public or per- 

22 



169 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

sonal, though they ought to drive us to God, yet the heart, 
unchanged, runs, the further from God. Do we not see it 
by ourselves and other sinners about us ? They look not at 
all towards Him who smites, much less do they return ; or 
if any more serious thoughts of returning arise upon the sur- 
prise of an affliction, how soon vanish they, either the stroke 
abating, or the heart, by time, growing hard and senseless un- 
der it! Leave Christ out, T say. and all other means work 
not this way ; neither the works nor the word of God sound- 
ing daily in his ear, Return, return. Let the noise of the 
rod speak it too, and both join together to make the cry the 
louder, yet the wicked ivill do wickedly. Dan. xii. 10. 

COMMENT. 

By the phrase " in Christ," I understand all the supernat- 
ural aids vouchsafed and conditionally promised in the Chris- 
tian dispensation ; and among them the spirit of truth, which 
the world cannot receive, were it only that the knowledge of 
spiritual truth is of necessity immediate and intuitive ; and the 
world or natural man possesses no higher intuitions than those 
of the pure sense, which are the subjects of mathematical sci- 
ence. But aids, observe: — therefore, not by the will of man 
alone ; but neither without the will. The doctrine of modern 
Calvinism, as laid down by Jonathan Edwards and the late 
Dr. Williams, which represents a will absolutely passive, clay 
in the hands of a potter, destroys all will, takes away its essence 
and definition, as effectually as in saying : This circle is square 
— I should deny the figure to be a circle at all. It was in strict 
consistency therefore, that these writers supported the Neces- 
sitarian scheme, and made the relation of cause and effect the 
law of the universe, subjecting to its mechanism the moral world 
no less than the material or physical. It follows, that all is na- 
ture. Thus, though few writers use the term spirit more 
frequently, they in effect deny its existence, and evacuate the 
term of all its proper meaning. With such a system not the 
wit of man nor all the theodicies ever framed by human in- 



ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 170 

genuity, before and since the attempt of the celebrated Leib- 
nitz, can reconcile the sense ol responsibility, nor the fact of 
the difference in kind between regret and remorse. The 
same compulsion of consequence drove the fathers of modern 
(or pseudo-) Calvinism to the origination of holiness in pow- 
er, of justice in right of property, and whatever other outra- 
ges on the common sense and moral feelings ol mankind they 
have sought to cover under the fair name of sovereign grace. 
I will not take on rne to defend sundry harsh aud incon- 
venient expressions in the works of Calvin. Phrases equally 
strong and assertions not less rash and startling are no rari- 
ties in the writings of Luther; for caiachresis was the favour- 
ite figure of speech in that age. But let not the opinions of 
either on this most fundamental subject be confounded with 
the New-England system, now entitled Calvinistic. The 
fact is simply this. Luther considered the pretensions to 
free-will boastful, and better suited to the budge doctors of 
the Stoic Fur, than to the preachers of the Gospel, whose 
great theme is the redemption of the will from slavery ; the 
restoration of the will to perfect freedom being the end and 
consummation of the redemptive proces?. and the same with 
the entrance of the soul into glory, that is, its union with 
Christ : " glory " (John xvii. 5.) being one of the names or 
tokens or symbols of the spiritual Messiah. Prospectively to 
this we are to understand the words of our Lord, At that 
day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, 
(John xiv. 20 :) the freedom of a finite will being possible un- 
der this condition only, that it has become one with the will 
of God. Now as the difference of a captive and enslaved 
will, and no will at all, such is the difference between the Lu- 
theranism of Calvin and the Calvinism of Jonathan Ed- 
wards. 

APHORISM II. 

LEIGHTOS. 

There is nothing in religion farther out of nature's reach. 



171 AIDS TO REFACTION. 

and more remote from the natural man's liking and believing, 
than the doctrine of redemption by a Saviour, and by a cru- 
cified Saviour. It is comparatively easy to persuade men of 
the necessity of an amendment of conduct ; it is more diffi- 
cult to make them see the necessity of repentance in the Gos- 
pel sense, the necessity of a change in the principle of action; 
but to convince men of the necessity of the death of Christ 
is the most difficult of all. And yet the first is but varnish 
and whitewash without the second ; and the second but a 
barren notion without the last. Alas ! cf those who admit 
the doctrine in words, how large a number evade it in fact, 
and empty it of all its substance and efficacy, making the ef- 
fect the efficient cause, or attributing their election to salva- 
tion to a supposed foresight of their faith and obedience. — 
But it is most vain to imagine a faith in such and such men, 
which, being foreseen by God, determined him to elect them 
for salvation : were it only that nothing at all is future, or 
can have this imagined futurition, but as it is decreed, and 
because it is decreed, by God so to be. 

COMMENT. 

No impartial person, competently acquainted with the his- 
tory of the Reformation, and the works of the earlier Protes- 
tant divines at home and abroad, even to the close of Eliza- 
beth's reign, will deny that the doctrines of Calvin on re- 
demption and the natural state of fallen man are in all es- 
sential points the same as those of Luther, -Zuinglius, and the 
first reformers collectively. These doctrines have, however, 
since the re-establishment of the Episcopal Church at the re- 
turn of Charles II. -been as generally * exchanged for what is 

* At a period, in which Doctors Marsh and Wordsworth have by the 
zealots on one side, been charged with Popish principles on account of 
their anti-bibliolatry, and the sturdy adherents of the doctrines common to 
Luther and Calvin, and the literal interpreters of the Articles and Homilies, 
are (I wish I could say, altogether without any fault of their own) regard- 
ed bv the Clergy generally as virtual schismatics, dividers of, though not 



ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 172 

Commonly entitled Arminianism, but which, taken as a com- 
plete and explicit scheme of belief, it would be both histori- 
cally and theologically more accurate to call Grotianism, or 
Christianity according' to Grotius. The change was not, as 
we may readily believe, effected without a struggle. In the 
Romish Church this latitudinarian system, patronized by the 
Jesuits, was manfully resisted by Jansenius, Arnauld, and 
Pascal ; in our own Church by the Bishops Davenant, San- 
derson, Hall, and the Archbishops Usher and Leighton : and 
in this latter half of the preceding aphorism the reader has 
a specimen of the reasonings by which Leighton strove to in- 
validate or counterpoise the reasonings of the innovators. 

Passages of this sort are, however, of rare occurrence in 
Leighton's works. Happily for thousands, he was more use- 
fully employed in making his readers feel that the doctrines 
in question. Scripturally treated and taken as co-organiz- 
ed parts of a great organic whole, need no such reasonings. 
And better still would it have been, had he left them alto- 
gether for those, who, severally detaching the great features 
of Revelation from the living context of Scripture, do by that 
very act destroy their life and purpose. And then, like the 

from, the Church, it is serving the cause of charity to assist in circulating 
the following instructive passage from the Life of Bishop Hackett respect- 
ing the disputes between the Augustinians, or Luthero-Calvinistic divines 
and the Grotians of his age : in which controversy (says his biographer) he, 
Hackett, " was ever very moderate." 

" But having been bred under Bishop Davenant and Dr. Ward in Cam- 
bridge, he was addicted to their sentiments. Archbishop Usher would 
say, that Davenant. understood those controversies better than ever any 
man did since St. Augustine. But he (Bishop Hackett) used to say, that 
he was sure he had three excellent men of his opinion in this controversy ; 

1. Padre Paolo (Father Paul) whose letter is extant in Pleinsius, anno 1604. 

2. Thomas Aquinas. 3. St. Augustine. But besides and above them all, 
he believed in his conscience that St. Paul was of the same mind likewise. 
Yet at the same time he would profess that he disliked no Arminians, but 
such as revile and defame every one who is not so : and he would often 
commend Arminius himself for his excellent wit and parts, but only to tax 
bis want of reading and knowledge in antiquity. And he ever held, it was 
the foolishest. thing inihe world to sny the Arminians were Popishly inclin- 



173 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

eyes of the Indian spider.* they become clouded microscopes, 
to exaggerate and distort all the other parts in proportion. — 
No offence then will be o< asioned, I trust, by the frank avow- 
al that I have given to the preceding passage a place among 
the spiritual aphorisms for the sake of the comment ; the fol- 
lowing remarks having been the first marginal note I had pen- 
cilled on Leighton's pages, and thus (remotely, at least), the 
occasion of the present work. 

Leighton, I observed, throughout his inestimable work, 
avoids all metaphysical views of Election, relatively to God, 
and confines himself to the doctrine in its relation to man ; 
and in that sense too, in which every Christian may judge of 
it who strives to be sincere with his own heart. The follow- 
ing may, I think, be taken as a safe and useful rule in reli- 
gious inquiries. Ideas, that derive their origin and sub- 
stance from the moral being, and to the reception of which 
as true objectively (that is, as corresponding to a reality out 
of the human mind) we are determined by a practical interest 
exclusively, may not, like theoretical positions, be pressed 
onward into all their logical consequences.! The law of 
conscience, and not the canons of discursive reasoning, 
must decide in such cases. At least, the latter have no va- 



ed, when so many Dominicans and Janscnists were rigid followers of Au- 
gustine in these points : and no less foolish to say that the Anti-Armini- 
ans were Puritans and Presbyterians, when Ward, and Davenant, and 
Prideaux, and Browning, those stout champions for Episcopacy, were deci- 
ded Anti-Arminians : while Arminius himself was ever a Presbyterian.— 
Therefore he greatly commended the moderation of our Church, which ex- 
tended equal communion to b >th. 

* Araura < prodigiosa. See Baker's Microscopic Experiments. 

t May not this rule be expressed more intelligibly (to a mathematician 
at least) thus : — Reasoning from finite to finite on a basis of truth ; also, 
reasoning from infinite to infinite on a basis of truth ; will always lead to 
truth as intelligibly as the basis on which such truths respectively rest — 
While reasoning from finite to infinite, or from infinite to finite, will lead 
to apparent absurdity, although the basis be true : and is not such appa- 
rent absurdity another expression for "truth unintelligible by a finite mind?" 



ON SPIRITUAL ItELlGION. 174 

liditv, which the single vetooi the former is not sufficient to 
nullify. The most pious conclusion is here the most legiti- 
mate. 

It is too seldom considered, though most worthy of consid- 
eration, how far even those ideas or theories of pure specu- 
lation, that bear the same name with the objects of religious 
faith, are indeed the same. Out of the principles necessarily 
presumed in all discursive thinking, and which being, in the 
first place universal, and secondly, antecedent to every par- 
ticular exercise of the understanding, arc therefore referred 
to the reason, the human mind (wherever its powers are suffi- 
ciently developed, and its attention strongly directed to spec- 
ulative or theoretical inquiries.) forms certain essences, to 
which for its own purposes it gives a sort of notional subsis- 
tence. Hence they are called entia rationalia : the conver- 
sion of which into entia rcalia, or real objects, by aid of the 
imagination, has in all times been the fruitful stock of empty 
theories and mischievous superstitions, of surreptitious pre- 
mises and extravagant conclusions. For as these substantia- 
ted notions were in many instances expressed by the same 
terms, as the objects of religious faith ; as in most instances 
they were applied, though deceptively, to the explanation of 
real experiences ; and lastly, from the gratifications, which the 
pride and ambition of man received from the supposed ex- 
tension of his knowledge and insight ; it was too easily for- 
gotten or overlooked, that the stablest and most indispensa- 
ble of these notional beings were but the necessary forms of 
thinking, taken abstractedly : and that like the breadthless 
lines, depthless surfaces, and perfect circles of geometry, they 
subsist wholly and solely in and for the mind that contem- 
plates them. Where the evidence of the senses fails us. and 
beyond the precincts of sensible experience, there is no re- 
ality attributable to any notion, but what is given to it by 
Revelation, or the law of conscience, or the necessary inter- 
ests of morality. 



175 AIDS TO KEl'LECTION. 

Take an instance : 
It is the office, and as it were, the instinct of reason to bring 
a unity into all our conceptions and several knowledges. On 
this all system depends ; and without this we could reflect 
connectedly neither on nature nor our own minds. Now this 
is possible only on the assumption or hypothesis of a One as 
the ground and cause of the universe, and which in all suc- 
cessions and through all changes is the subject neither of time 
nor change. The One must be contemplated as eternal and 
immutable. 

Well ! the idea, which is the basis of religion, commanded 
by the conscience and required by morality, contains the same 
truths, or at least the truths that can be expressed in no oth- 
er terms ; but this idea presents itself to our mind with addi- 
tional attributes, and these too not formed by mere abstrac- 
tion and negation — with the attributes of holiness, providence, 
love, justice, and mercy. It comprehends, moreover, the in- 
dependent (extra-mundane) existence and personality of the 
Supreme One, as our Creator, Lord, and Judge. 

The hypothesis of a one ground and principle of the uni- 
verse (necessary as a hypothesis, but having only a logical 
and conditional necessity.) is thus raised into the idea of the 
Living God, the supreme object of our faith, love, fear, and 
adoration. Religion and morality do indeed constrain us to 
declare him eternal and immutable. But if from the eterni- 
ty of the Supreme Being a reasoner should deduce the im- 
possibility of acrsation ; or conclude with Aristotle, that the 
creation was co-eternal ; or, like the later Platonists, should 
turn creation into emanation, and make the universe proceed 
from the Deity, as the sunbeams from the solar orb ; — or if 
from the divine immutability he should infer that all prayer 
and supplication must be vain and superstitious: then, howr 
ever evident and logically necessary such conclusions may 
appear, it is scarcely worth our while to examine, whether 
they are so or not. The positions themselves must be false. 
For were they true, the idea would lose the sole around qf its 



on si-mi ri \i. it.;:.u. [o.v. I t J 

reality, [t would be no longer the idea intended by the be- 
liever i;i his premiss — in the premiss, with which alone reli- 
gion and morality are cpncerncd. The very subject of the 
discussion would be changed. It would no longer be the 
God, in whom we 1 : but a stoical Fate, or the super- 

essential One of Plotinqs, to whom neither inte ligem . noi 
self-consciousnessj nor life, nor even being can be attributed ; 
or lastly, the world itself, the indivisible one and only sub- 
stance (substantia una et uuica) of Spinoza, of which all 
ptioenorriena, all particular and individual things, live$, minds, 
thoughts, and actions, are but mociiticai. 

Let the believer never be alarmed by objections whol- 
ly speculative, however plausible on speculative gjjrqunds such 
objections may appear, if he can but satisfy himself, that the 
result is repugnant to the dictates of conscience . .:■■.>■ ii . 
citable with the interests of morality. For 10 balile the ob- 
jector we have only to demand of him, by what right and im- 
der what authority he converts a thought into a substance, or 
asserts the existence of a real somewhat corresponding to a 
notion not derived from the experience of his senses. It will 
be of no purpose for him to answer that it. is a legitimate no- 
tion. The notion may have its mould in the understand 
but its realization must, be the work of the fancy. 

A reflecting reader will easily appl) marks to the 

subject of Election, one of the stumbling stones in iho ordi- 
nary conceptions of the Christian Faith, to which the Infidel 
points in score, and which far bettej by in silent 

perplexity. Yet surely, fro,m mistaken conceptions of the 
doctrine. I suppose the person, with whom I am arguing, 
already so far a bt liever, as to have convinced himself, both 
that a state of enduring bliss is attainable under certain cui- 
ditiona ; and that these conditions consist in his compliance 
with the directions given and rules prescribed in the Chris- 
tian Scriptures. These rules he likewise admits to be such, 
that, by the very law and constitution of the human mind, a 
full and faithful compliance with them cannot but have con 



1^8 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

sequences of souk: sort or other. But these consequences 
are moreover distinctly described, enumerated, and promised 
in the same Scriptures, in which the conditions are recorded ; 
and though some of them may be apparent to God only, yet 
the greater number of them are of such a nature that they 
cannot exist unknown to the individual, in and for whom they 
exist. As little possible is it, that he should find these con- 
sequences in himself, and not find in them the sure marks 
and the safe pledges that he is at the time in the right road 
to the life promised under these conditions. Now I dare as- 
sert that no such man, however fervent his charity and how- 
ever deep his humility may be, can pursue the records of his- 
tory with a reflecting spirit, or look round the world with an 
observant eye, and not find himself compelled to admit, that 
all men are not on the right road. He cannot help judging 
that even in Christian countries many, — a fearful many, — 
have not their faces turned toward it. 

This then is a mere matter of fact. Now comes the ques- 
tion. Shall the believer, who thus hopes on the appointed 
grounds of hope, attribute this distinction exclusively to his 
own resolves and strivings, — or if not exclusively, yet primarily 
and principally ? Shall he refer the first movements and 
preparations to his own will and understanding, and bottom 
his claim to the promises on his own comparative excellence? 
If not, if no man dare take this honour to himself, to whom 
shall he assign it, if not to that Being in whom the promise 
originated, and on whom its fulfilment depends ? If he stop 
here who shall blame him ? By what argument shall his rea- 
soning be invalidated, that might not be Urged with equal 
force against any essential difference between obedient and 
disobedient, Christian and worldling ; — that would not im- 
ply that both sorts alike are, in the sight of God, the sons of 
God by adoption ? If he stop here, I say, who shall drive 
him from his position ? For thus far he is practically con- 
cerned ; — this the conscience requires : this the highest in- 



ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 179 

ierests of morality demand. It is a question of facts, of the 
will and the deed, to argue against which on the abstract no- 
tions and possibilities of the speculative reason is as unreason- 
able, as an attempt to decide a question of colors by pure ge- 
ometry, or to unsettle the classes and specific characters of 
natural history by the doctrine of fluxions. 

But if the self-examinant will abandon this position, and 
exchange the safe circle of religion and practical reason for 
the shifting sand-wastes and mirages of speculative theolo- 
gy ; if instead of seeking after the marks of Election in him- 
self he undertakes to determine the ground and origin, the 
possibility and mode of Election itself in relation to God ; — 
in this case, and whether he does it for ihe satisfaction of cu- 
riosity, or from the ambition of answering those, who would 
call God himself to account, why and by what right certain 
souls were born in Africa instead of England : — or why (see- 
ing that it is against all reason and goodness to choose a 
worse, when being omnipotent lie could have created a bet- 
ter) God did not create beasts men, and men angels ; — or why 
God created any men but with foreknowledge of their obedi- 
ence, and left any occasion for Election ; — in this case, I say 
we can only regret that the inquirer had not been better in- 
structed in the nature, the bounds, the true purposes and 
proper objects of his intellectual faculties, and that he had not 
preciously asked himself, by what appropriate sense, or organ 
of knowledge, he hoped to secure an insight into a nature 
which was neither an object of his senses, nor a part of his self- 
consciousness ; and so leave him to ward off shadowy spears 
with the shadow of a shield, and to retaliate the nonsense of 
blasphemy with the abracadabra of presumption. He that 
will fly without wings must fly in his dreams: and till he 
awakes, will not find out that to fly in a dream is but to dream 
of flying. 

Thus then the doctrine of Election is in itself a necessary 
inference from an undeniable fact — necessary at least for all 
who hold that the best of men are what they are through the 



t(SQ a. US 'i [) HlCFXECa lox. 

grace of God. In relaiio i to the believer it is a hope, which 
if it spring out of Christian principles, be examined by the 
and nourished by the moans prescribed in Scripture, 
will bgcOme a lively and an assured hope, but which cannot 
in this life pass into knowledge^ much less certainty of fore- 
knowledge. The contrary belief does indeed make the arti- 
cle of Election both tool and parcel of a mad and mischiev- 
ous fanaticism. But wit!) what force and clearness does not 
the Apostle confute, disclaim, and prohibit the pretence, 
treating it as a downright contradiction in terms! See Rom. 
viii. 24. 

But though T hold the dockine handled as Leigh ton hand- 
iest it. (that is practically, morally, humbly) rational, safe, and 
of essential importance, I see many* reasons resulting from 
the peculiar circumstances, under which St. Paul preached 
and wrote, why a discreet minister of the Gospel should avoid 
the frequent use of the term, and express the meaning in other 
words perfectly equivalent and equally Scriptural ; lest in 
saying truth he may convey error. 

Had my purpose been confined to one particular tenet, an 
apology might be required for so long a comment. But the 
reader will, I trust, have already perceived, that my object 



* For example : at the date of St. Paul's Epistles, the (Roman) world 
ptiay bo resembled to a mass in the furnace in the first moment of fusion, 
here a speck and there a spot of the melted metal shinning pure and bril- 
iant amid the scum arid dross. To have received the name of Christian 
was a privilege, n high and distinguishing favor. No wonder therefore, 
that in St. Paul's writings the words, elect and election often, nay, most of- 
ten, mean the same as eccalumeni\ ecclesia^ that is, those who have been 
called out of the world : and it is a dangerous perversion of the Apostle's 
word to interpret it in the sense, in which it was used by our Lord, viz. in 
opposition to the called. (Many are called but few chosen). In St. Paul's 
sense and at that time the believers collectively formed a small and select 
number 5 and every Christian, real or nominal, was one of the elect. Add 
too, that this ambiguity is increased by the accidental circumstance, that 
tho Kyriak, dries Vominicce, Lord's House, kirk ; and ecclesia, the sum to- 
tal of the rrrulnmrnt. c-orali, railed -cut : are both rendered by the same 
word Church. 



ON SPIRITUAL RELiGlON 181 

has been to establish a general rule of interpretation and vin- 
dication applicable to all doctrinal tenets, and especially to 
the (so called) mysteries of t!:c Christian faith : to provide a 
safety-lamp for religious inquiries. Now this T find in the 
principle, that all revealed truths are to be judged of by us, as 
far as t hey are possible subjects of human conception, or 
grounds of practice, or in some way connected with our mor- 
al and spiritual interests. In order to have a reason for form- 
ing a judgment on any given article, we must be sure that We 
possess a reason, by and according to which a judgment may 
be formed. Now in respect of all truths, to which a real and 
independent existence is assigned, and which yet arc not con- 
tained in, or to be imagined under, any form of space or time, 
it is strictly demonstrable, that the human reason, consider- 
ed abstractly, as the source of positive science and theoret- 
ical insight, is not sue!) a reason. At the utmost it has on- 
ly a negative voice. In other words, nothing can be allow- 
ed as true for the human mind, which directly contradicts 
this reason. But even here, before we admit the existence 
of any such contradiction, we must be careful to ascertain, 
that there is no equivocation in play, that two different sub- 
jects arc not confounded under one and the same word. A 
striking instance of this has been adduced in the difference 
between the notional One of the Ontologists, and the idea of 
the living God. 

But if not the abstract or speculative reason, and yet a rea- 
son there must be in order to a rational belief — then it must 
be the practical reason of man, comprehending the will, the 
conscience, the moral being with its inseparable interests and 
affections — that reason, namely, which is the organ of wis- 
dom, and (as far as mail is concerned) the source of living 
and actual truths. 

From these premisses we may further deduce?, that every 
doctrine is to be interpreted in reference to those, to whom 
it has been revealed, or who have or have had the means of 
knowing or hearing the same. For instance ; the doctrine that 



182 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

there is no name under heaven, by which a man can be sav- 
ed, but the name of Jesus If the word here rendered name, 
may be understood (as it well may, and as in other texts it 
must be) as meaning the power, or originating cause, I see 
no objection on the part of the practical reason to our belief 
of the declaration in its whole extent. It is true universally 
or not true at all. If there be any redemptive power not con- 
tained in the power of Jesus, then Jesus is not the Redeem- 
er : not the Redeemer of the world, not the Jesus (that is, 
Saviour) of mankind. But if with Tertullian and Augustine 
we make the text assert the condemnation and misery of all 
who are not Christians by Baptism and explicit belief in the 
revelation of the New Covenant — then I say, the doctrine is 
true to all intents and purposes. It is true, in every respect 
in Which any practical, moral, or spiritual interest or end can 
be connected with its truth. It is true in respect to every 
man who has had, or who might have had, the Gospel preach- 
ed to him. It is true and obligatory for every Christian com- 
munity and for every individual believer, wherever the op- 
portunity is afforded of spreading the light of the Gospel and 
making known the name of the only Saviour and Redeemer. 
For even though the uninformed Heathens should not perish, 
the guilt of their perishing will attach to those who not only 
had no certainty of their safety, but who are commanded to 
act on the supposition of the contrary. But if. on the other 
hand, a theological dogmatist should attempt to persuade me 
that this text was intended to give us an historical knowledge 
of God\s future actions and dealings — and for the gratifica- 
tion of our curiosity to inform us, that Socrates and Phocion, 
together with all the savages in the woods and wilds of Af- 
rica and America, will be sent to keep company with the 
Devil and his angels in everlasting torments — I should remind 
him, that the purpose of Scripture was to teach us our duty, 
not to enable us to sit in judgement upon the souls of our fel- 
low creatures. 

One other instance will, I trust, prevent all misconcep- 



ON SPIRITUAL KKLIGIOH. 183 

tions of my meaning. I am clearly convinced that the Scrip- 
tural and only true* idea of God will, in its developement, be 
found to involve the idea of the Tri-unity. But 1 am like- 
wise convinced, that previously to the promulgation of the 
Gospel the doctrine had no claim on the faith of mankind : 
though it might have been a legitimate contemplation for a 
speculative philosopher, a theorem in metaphysics valid in 
the Schools. 

I form a certain notion in my mind, and say : This is 
what I understand by the term, God. From books and con- 
versation I find that the learned generally connect the same 
notion with the same word. I then apply the rules laid down 
by the masters of logic, for the involution and evolution of 
terms, and prove (to as many as agree with me in my premis- 
ses) that the notion, God, involves the notion, Trinity. I 
now pass out of the Schools, and enter into discourse with 
some friend or neighbour, unversed in the formal sciences, 
unused to the process of abstraction, neither logician nor 
metaphysician ; but sensible and single-minded, on Israelite 
indeed, trusting in the Lord God of his fathers, even the God 
of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob. If I speak of God to 
him, what will he understand me to be speaking of ? What 
does he mean, and suppose me to mean, by the word ? An 
accident or product of the reasoning faculty, or an abstrac- 
tion which the human mind forms by reflecting on its own 
thoughts and forms of thinking ? No. By God he under- 
stands me to mean an existing and self-subsisting reality,! a 

* Or (I may add) any idea which d :es not either identity the Creator 
with the creation ; or else represent the Supreme Being asa mere imperson- 
al law or qrdo ordinans, differing from the law of gravitation only by its 
universality. 

I I have elsewhere remarked on the assistance which those thai labor af 
ter distinct conceptions would receive from the re-jntroduction of the terms 
objective and subjective^ and subjective, and objective reality, and the like, as 
substitutes for real and notional, and to the exclusion of the false antithe- 
sis between real and ideal. For t.hp student in thai noblest of 'tin? sciences, 
the scire teipsum, the advantage would be especially great. The few sen- 



184 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

real and personal Being — even the person, the i am, who sent 
Moses to his forefathers in Egypt. Of the actual existence 
of this divine Being he lias the same historical assurance as 
of theirs ; confirmed indeed by the book of Nature, as soon 
and as far as that stronger and better light has taught him to 



tences that follow, in illustration of the terms here advocated, will not, ! 
trust, be a waste of the reader's time. 

The celebrated Euler having demonstrated certain properties of arches, 
adds : " All experience is in contradiction to this ; but (his is no reason for 
doubting its truth." The words sound paradoxical ; but mean no more 
than this — that the mathematical properties of figure and space are not less 
certainly the properties of figure and space I they can never be per- 

fectly realized in wood, stone, or iron. Now this assertion of Euler's 
might be expressed at once, briefly and simply, by saying, that the proper- 
ties in question were subjectively true, though not objectively — or that the 
mathematical arch possessed a subjective reality though incapable of b 
realized objectively. 

In like manner if I had to expr< my conviction that space was not itself 
a thing but a mode or form of perceiving, or the inward ground and condi- 
tion in the percipient, in consequence of which things are seen as outward 
and co-existing, I convey this at once by the Words, Space is subject; \ 
space is real in and for the subject alone. 

If I am asked, Why not say, in and for the mind, which every one woul 1 
understand? I reply : we kn<v that all minds are subjects ; but 

are by no means certain that all subjects are minds. For a mind is a sub- 
ject that knows itself, or n subject that is its own object. The inward prin- 
ciple of growth and individual form in every seed and plant is a sub 
and without any exertion of poetic privilege poets may sneak of the soul of 
the flower. But the man would be a dreamer, who < : ban poetic- 

ally should speak of roses and lilies as self-conscious subjects. Lastly, by 
the assistance of the terms, object and subject, thus used as tident 

oppesites, or as negative and positive in physics (for ex imple, negative and 
positive electricity) we may arrive at llv distinct import and proper u 
the strangely misused word, [dea. And as are all bor- 

rowed from geonn-try (rntiocinatio discursivaformas; nonas r, 

ripit ub intuitu) I may be permitted to eluc i1 meaning. Ev- 

ery line may be, and by the ancient Ge< - considered as a point 

produced, the two extremes being its poles, while the point, itself remains 
in, or is it least represented by, the mid point, the indifference of the two 
poles or correlative opposites. Logically applied, the two extremes or 
poles are named thesis and antithesis • thus in the line, 

I 

T A 

we hnve r T=tkcsis, A - -antithesis, and l—pui ctum indiffertns site aw t ?ho 



ON SPIRi N vi. RELIGION. I 8«$ 

road and conslnic it — confirmed by it, I say, but not dcri- 
vrl from it. Now by what right can T require this man ('and 
of such men the great majority of serious believers consisted 
previously to the light of the Gospel) to receive a notion of 

tericum, which I ■' as both, in as far as it may be ei- 

ther of the two former. Observe : nol both at the same tim • m Hi.- same re- 
lation : for tlii^ would be the (^entity of T and A, not the indiff* rence : — 
but so, thai relatively to A. I is equal '■■> T, ami relatively to T, it becomes 
=A. For the purpose I tfoetic, in which we require terms 

of most comprehen mport, might not the Noetic Pen 

tad bo, — I. Prothesis. 

2. TJiesis ! ■ Mcsothesis. 3. Antithesis 

5 

Pros , 
Sum. 
Thesis. Mcsothesis. Antithesis 

Res. Agere. Ago, Patior 

Synthesis. 
. Igt ris. 

1. Verb substantive= Prothesis. as expressing the identity or co-inher- 
ence of act and being. 

2. Substantive=T/*es£s, expressing being. 3. Vevb=Antithesis, ex- 
pressing act. 4. Infi.mtive=Mcsothcsis, as being either substantive or 
verb,orboth at once, only in different i 5. Part'iciple=Synthesis. 
Thus, in chemistry, sulphuretted hydn gen is an acid relatively to the more 
powerful alkalis, and an alii .! acid. Yet one oth- 
er remark and 1 pass to the quei tion. In order to render the constructions 
of pure mathematics applicable to philosophy, the Pythagoreans,] imagine, 
represented the line as generated, or, as it were, radiated, by a point not 
contained in the line but independent, and (in the language of that School) 
transcendent to all production, wlucli it, caused but did not partake. Facit 
nonpatitur. This was the punctum invisible ct prcsuppositum : and in 
this way the Pythag ireans guarded against the error of Pantheism, into 
which the later Schools fell. The assumption >f this point I call the logic- 
al prothesis. We have now therefore lour relati >ns of thought expressed : 
1. Prothesis, or the identity of T and A, which is neither because in it as 
the transcendent ofboth, both are contained and exist as one. Taken ab- 
solutely, this finds its application in the Supreme Being alone, the Pythago- 
reans Tetractys ; the ineffable name, to which no image can be attached; 
the point, which has no (real) opposite or counter-point. Bui relatively ta- 
ken and inadequately, the germinal power of every seed might be general- 
ized under the relation of identity. 2. Thesis, or position. 3 Antithesis. 
or opposition. 4. Indifference. To which when we add the Sini/hrr>'< <v 

24 



186 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

mine, wholly alien from his habits of thinking, because it may 
be logically deduced from another notion, with which he was 
almost as little acquainted, and'not at all concerned ? Grant 
for a moment, that the latter (that is, the notion, with which 
I first set out) as soon as it is combined with the assu- 
rance of a corresponding reality becomes identical with the 
true and effective Idea of God ! Grant, that in thus reali- 
zing the notion I am warranted by revelation, the law of con- 
science, and the interests of my moral being ! Yet by 
what authority, by what inducement, am I entitled to attach 
the same reality to a second notion, a notion drawn from a no- 
tion. It is evident, that if I have the same right, it must be 
on the same grounds. Revelation must have assured it, my 
conscience required it — or in some way or other I must have 
an interest in this belief. It must concern me, as a moral 
and responsible being. Now these grounds were first given 
in the redemption of mankind by Christ, the Saviour and 
Mediator : and by the utter incompatibility of these offices 
with a mere creature. On the doctrine of redemption de- 



composition in its several forms of equilibrium, as in quiescent electricity ; 
of neutralization, as of oxygen and hydrogen in water; and of predom- 
inance, as of hydrogen and carbon with hydrogen predominant, in pure al- 
cohol ; or of carbon and hydrogen, with the comparative predominance of 
the carbon, in oil; we complete the five most general forms or preconcep. 
tions of constructive logic. 

And now for the answer to the question, what is an idea, if it mean nei- 
ther an impression on the senses, nor a definite conception, nor an abstract 
notion ? (And if it does mean either of these, the word is superfluous : 
and while it remains undetermined which of these is meant by the word, 
or whether it is not which you please, it is worse than superfluous.) But 
supposing the w T ord to have a meaning of its own, what does it mean ? — 
What is an idea ? In answer to this I commence with the absolute Real as 
the prothesis ; the subjectively Real as the thesis ; the objectively Real as 
the antithesis ; and I affirm, that Idea is the indifference of the two — so 
namely, that if it be conceived as in the subject, the idea is an object, and 
possesses objective truth ; but if in an object, it is then a subject and is ne- 
cessarily thought of as exercising the powers of a subject. Thus an idea 
conceived as subsisting in an object becomes a law ; and a law eontempla* 
ted subjectively (in a mind) is an idea. 



ON SPIRITUAL KKLIGION. 187 

pends the faith, the duty, of believing in the divinity of our 
Lord. And this again is the strongest ground for the reality 
of that Idea, in which alone this divinity can be received with- 
out breach of the faith in the unity of the Godhead. But 
such is the Idea of the Trinity. Strong as the motives are 
that induce me to defer the full discussion of this great arti- 
cle of the Christian Creed, I cannot withstand the request of 
several divines, whose situation and extensive services entitle 
them to the utmost deference, that I should so far deviate 
from my first intention as at least to indicate the point on 
which I stand, and to prevent the misconception of my pur- 
pose : as if I held the doctrine of the Trinity for a truth which 
men could be called on to believe by mere force of reasoning, 
independently of any positive Revelation. In short, it had 
been reported in certain circles, that I considered this doc- 
trine as a demonstrable part of the religion of nature. Now 
though it might be sufficient to say, that I regard the very 
phrase " Revealed Religion " as a pleonasm, inasmuch as a 
religion not revealed is, in my judgment, no religion at all ; 
I have no objection to announce more particularly and dis- 
tinctly what I do and what I do not maintain on this point: 
provided that in the following paragraph, with this view in- 
serted, the reader will look for nothing more than a plain 
statement of my opinions. The grounds on which they rest, 
«nd the arguments by which they are to be vindicated, are 
for another place. 

I hold then, it is true, that all the (so called) demonstra- 
tions of a God either prove too little, as that from the order 
and apparent purpose in nature ; or too much, namely, that 
the World is itself God : or they clandestinely involve the 
conclusion in the premisses, passing off the mere analysis or 
explication of an assertion for the proof of it, — a species of 
logical legerdemain not unlike that of the jugglers at a fair, 
who putting into their mouths what seems to be a walnut, 
draw out a score yards of ribbon — as in the postulate of a 
First Cause. And lastly, in all these demonstrations the 



188 AIDS T0 REFLECTION. 

demonstrators presuppose the idea or conception of a God 
without being able to authenticate it, that is, to give an account 
whence they obtained it. For it is clear, that the proof first 
mentioned and the most natural and convincing of all (the cos- 
mologienl I mean, or that from the order in nature) presup- 
poses the ontological — that is, the proof of a God from the 
necessity and necessary objectivity of the Idea. If the latter 
can assure us of a God as an existing" reality, the former will 
go far to prove his power, wisdom, and benevolence. All this 
I hold. But I also hold, that this truth, the hardest to de- 
monstrate, is the one which of all others least needs to be de- 
monstrated ; that though there may be no conclusive demon- 
strations of a good, wise, living, and personal God, there are 
so many convincing reasons for it, within and without — a 
grain of sand sufficing, and a whole universe at hand to echo 
the decision ! — -thai tor every mind not devoid of all reason, 
and desperately conscience-proof, the truth which it is the 
least possible to prove, it is little less than impossible not to 
believe ! only indeed just so much short of impossible, as to 
leave some room for the will and the moral election, and 
thereby to keep it a truth of religion, and the possible subject 
of a commandment * 

On this account I do not demand of a Deist, that he should 



* In a letter to a friend on the mathematical Athiests of the French Rev- 
olution, La Lande and others, or rather on a young man of distinguished 
abilities, but an avowed and proselyting partizan of their tenets, I conclu- 
ded with these words : " The man who will believe nothing but by force 
of demonstrative evidence (even though it is strictly demonstrable that the 
demonstrability required would couriterveiie all the purposes of (he truth 
in question, all that renders the belief of the same desirable or obligatory) 
is not in a state of mind to be reasoned with on any Subject. But if he fur- 
ther denies the fact of the law of conscience, and the essential difference 
between right and wrong, I confess, he puzzles me. I cannot without 
gross inconsistency appeal to his conscience and moral sense, or I should 
admonish him that, as an honest man, he ought to advertize himself, with a 
Cavete omnes .' Sceltcs sum. And as an honest man myself, I dare not ad- 
vise him on prudential grounds to keep his opinions secret, lest I should 
make myself his accomplice} ai'd be helping him on with a wrap-rascal." 



OJS SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 189 

adopt the doctrine of the Trinity. For he might very well 
be justified in replying, that he rejected the doctrine, not be- 
cause it coulJ not be demonstrated, nor yet on the score of any 
incomprehensibilities and seemi ig contradictio is that might 
be objected to it, as knowing that these might be, and in fact 
had been, urged with equal force against a personal God un- 
der any form capable of love and veneration ; but because 
he had not the same theoretical necessity, the same interests 
and instincts of reason for the one hypothesis as for the other. 
It is not enough, the Deist might justly say, that there is no 
cogent reason why I should not believe the Trinity ; you must 
show me some cogent reason why I should. 

But the case is quite different with a Christian, who ac- 
cepts the Scriptures as the word of God, yet refuses his assent 
to the plainest d< durations of th< se Scri| tures, and v\\ lains 
away the most express texts into metaphor and hyperbole, 
because the literal and obvious interpretation is (according to 
his notions) absurd and contrary to reason. He is bound to 
show, that it is so in any sense, not equally applicable to the 
texts asserting the being, infinity, and personality of God the 
Father, the Eternal and Omnipotent One who created the 
heaven and the earth. And the more is he bound to do this, 
and the greater is my right to demand it of him, because the 
doctrine of Redemption from sin supplies the Christian with 
motives and reasons for the divinity of the Redeemer far 
more concerning and coercive subjectively, that is, in the 
economy of his own soul, than are all the inducements that 
can influence the Deist, objectively, that is, in the interpre- 
tation of nature. 

Do I then utterly exclude the speculative reason from the- 
ology ? No ! It is its office and rightful privilege to de- 
termine on the negative truth of whatever we are required to 
believe. The doctrine must not contradict any universal 
principle : for this would be a doctrine that contradicted it- 
self. Or philosophy ? No. It may be and has been the ser- 
vant and pioneer of faith by convincing the mind that a doc- 



190 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

trine is cogitable, that the soul can present the idea to itself; 
and that if we determine to contemplate, or think of, the 
subject at all, so and in no other form can this be effected. — 
So far are both logic and philosophy to be received and trust- 
ed. But the duty, and in some cases and for some persons 
even the right, of thinking on subjects beyond the bounds of 
sensible experience ; the grounds of the real truth ; the life, 
the substance, the hope, the love, in one word, the faith ; — 
these are derivatives from the practical, moral, and spiritual 
nature and being of man. 

APHORISxM III. 

BURNET AND COLEI11DGB. 

That religion is designed to improve the nature and facul- 
ties of man, in order to the right governing of our actions, to 
the securing the peace and progress, external and internal, of 
individuals and of communities, and lastly, to the rendering us 
capable of a more perfect state, entitled the kingdom of God, 
to which the present life is probationary — this is a truth, 
which all who have truth only in view, will receive on its own 
evidence. If such then be the main end of religion altogeth- 
er (the improvement namely of our nature and faculties), it 
is plain, that every part of religion, is to be judged by its re- 
lation to this main end. And since the Christian-scheme is 
religion in its most perfect and effective form, a revealed re- 
ligion, and, therefore, in a special sense proceeding from that 
Being who made us and knows what we are, of course there- 
fore adapted to the needs and capabilities of human nature ; 
nothing can be a part of this holy Faith that is not duly pro- 
portioned to this end. 

COMMENT. 

This aphorism should be borne in mind, whenever a theo- 
logical resolve is proposed to us -as an article of faith. 
Take, for instance, the determinations passed at the Synod 
of Dort, concerning the absolute decrees of God in connec- 



OS SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 191 

tion with his omniscience and foreknowledge. Or take the 
decision in the Council of Trent o;: the difference between 
the two kinds of Transubstantiation, the one in which both 
the substance and the accidents are changed, the same mat- 
ter remaining — as in the conversion of water to wine at Ca- 
na : the other, in which the matter and substance are chan- 
ged the accidents remaining unaltered, as in the Eucharist 
— this latter being Transubstantiation par eminence ! Or 
rather take the still more tremendous dogma, that it is indis- 
pensable to a saving faith carefully to distinguish the one kind 
from the other, and to believe both, and to believe the neces- 
sity of believing both in order to salvation ! For each or ei- 
ther of these extra-Scriptural articles of faith the preceding 
aphorism supplies a safe criterion. Will the belief tend to 
the improvement of any of my moral or intellectual faculties ? 
But before I can be convinced that a faculty will be impro- 
ved, I must be assured that it exists. On all these dark say- 
ings, therefore, of Dort or Trent, it is quite sufficient to ask, 
by what faculty, organ, or inlet of knowledge, we are to as- 
sure ourselves that the words mean any thing, or correspond 
to any object out of our own mind or even in it : unless in- 
deed the mere craving and striving to think on, after all the 
materials for thinking have been exhausted, can be called an 
object. When a number of trust-worthy persons assure me, 
that a portion of fluid which they saw to be water, by some 
change in the fluid itself or in their senses, suddenly acquired 
the colour, taste, smell, and exhilarating property of wine, I 
perfectly understand what they tell me, and likewise by what 
faculties they might have come to the knowledge of the fact. 
But if any one of the number not satisfied with my acquies- 
cence in the fact, should insist on my believing, that the mat- 
ter remained the same, the substance and the accidents hav- 
ing been removed in order to make way for a different sub- 
stance with different accidents, I must entreat his permission 
to wait till I can discover in myself any faculty, by which 
there can be presented to mc a matter distinguishable from 



192 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

accidents, and a substance that is different from both. It is 
true, I have a faculty of articulation ; but I do not sre that it 
can be improved by my using it for the formation of words 
without meaning, or at least, for the utterance of thoughts, 
that mean only the act of so thinking, or trying so to think. 
But the end of religion is the improvement of our nature and 
faculties. Ergo, &x. I sum up the whole in one great 
practical maxim. The object of religious contemplation, and 
of a truly spiritual faith, is" the ways of God to man." Of 
the workings of the Godhead, God himself has told us, My 
ways are not as your ways, nor my thoughts as your 
thoughts. 

APHORISM IV. 

THE CHARACTERISTIC DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE DISCIPLINE 
OF THE ANCIENT PHILOSOPHERS AND THE DISPENSATION OF 
THE COSPEL. 

By undeceiving, enlarging, and informing the intellect, 
philosophy sought to purify and to elevate the moral char- 
acter. Of course, those alone could receive the latter and 
incomparably greater benefit, who by natural capacity and 
favorable contingences of fortune were, fit recipients of the 
foimer. How small the number, we scarcely need the evi- 
dence of history to assure us. Across the night of Paganism, 
philosophy flitted on, like the lantern-fly of the Tropics, a 
light to itself, and an ornament, but alas ! no more than an 
ornament, of the surrounding darkness. 

Christianity reversed the order. By means accessible to 
all. by inducements operative on all, and by convictions, 
the grounds and materials of which all men might find in 
themselves, her first step was to cleanse the heart. But the 
benefit did not stop here. In preventing the rank vapours 
that steam up from the corrupt heart, Christianity restores 
the intellect likewise to its natural clearness. By relieving 
the mind from the distractions and importunities of the unru- 
ly passions, she improves the quality of the understanding : 



uN Sl'LIUTl AL RELIGION. 193 

while at the same time she presents for its contemplations ob- 
jects so great and so bright as cannot but enlarge the organ* 
by which they are contemplated. The fears, the hopes, the re- 
membrances, the anticipations, the inward and outward ex- 
perience, the belief and the faith, of a Christian, form of 
themselves a philosophy and a sum of knowledge, which a 
life spent in the Grove of Academus, or the u painted Porch," 
could not have attained or collected. The result is contain- 
ed in the fact of a wide arid siill widening Christendom. 

Yet I dare not say, that the effects have been proportion- 
ate to the divine wisdom of the scheme. Too soon did the 
Doctors of the Church forget that the heart, the moral nature 
was the beginning and the end ; and that truth, knowledge, 
and insight were comprehended in its expansion. This was 
the true and first apostasy — when in council and synod the 
divine humanities of the Gospel gave way to speculative sys- 
tems, and religion became a science of shadows under the 
name of theology, or at best a bare skeleton of truth, without 
life or interest, alike inaccessible and unintelligible to the ma- 
jority of Christians. For these therefore there remained only 
rites and ceremonies and spectacles, shows and semblances. 
Thus among the learned the substance of things hoped for 
(Heb. xi. 1.) passed oil into notions; and for the unlearned 
the surfaces of things became * substance. The Christian 
world was for centuries divided into the many, that did not 
think at all, and too few who did nothing but think — both 
alike unreflecting, the one from defect of the act, the other 
from the absence of an object. 

APHORISM V. 

There is small chance of truth at the goal where there is 
not a child-like humility at the starting-post. 



I i r'nnn (I proprielatum, qua non nisi de substantibus predicari pos 
snnt.yfoi mis superst mtibus attribution est Supi rstitio. 



194 AIDS TO REFLECTION 1 . 

COMMENT, 

Humility is the safest ground of docility, and docility the 
surest promise of docibility. Where there is no working of 
self-love in the heart that secures a leaning beforehand ; 
where the great magnet of the planet is not overwhelmed or 
obscured by partial masses of iron in close neighbourhood to 
the compass of the judgment, though hidden or unnoticed ,' 
there will this great desideratum be found of a child-like hu- 
mility. Do I then say, that I am to be influenced by no in- 
terest ? Far from it ! There is an interest of truth or how 
could there be a love of truth ? And that a love of truth for 
its own sake, and merely as truth, is possible, my soul bears 
witness to itself in its inmost recesses. But there are other 
interests — those of goodness, of beauty, of utility. It would 
be a sorry proof of the humility I am extolling, were I to ask for 
angel's wings to overfly my own human nature. I exclude 
none of these. It is enough if the lene clinamen, the gentle 
bias, be given by no interest that concerns myself other than 
as I am a man, and included in the great family of mankind; 
but which does therefore especially concern me, because be- 
ing a common interest of all men it must needs concern the 
very essentials of my being, and because these essentials, as 
existing in me, arc especially entrusted to my particular 
charge. 

Widely different from this social and truth-attracted bias, 
different both in its nature and its effects, is the interest con- 
nected with the desire ot distinguishing yourself from other 
men, in order to be distinguished by them. Hoc revera est 
inter te et veritatem. This interest does indeed stand be- 
tween thee and truth. I might add between thee and thy own 
soul. It is scarcely more at variance with the love of truth 
than it is unfriendly to the attainment that deserves that name. 
By your own act you have appointed the many as your judges 
and appraisers : for the anxiety to be admired is a loveless 
passion, ever strongest with regard to those by whom we are 



ON SPIRITUAL Kii.io.lOM. 195 

least known and least cared for, loud on the hustings, gay in 
the ball-room, mute and sullen at the family fire-side. What 
you have acquired by patient thought and cautious discrimin- 
ation, demands a portion of the same effort in those who are 
to receive it from you. But applause and preference are 
things of barter ; and if you trade in them, experience v/ill 
soon teach you that there are easier and less unsuitable ways to 
win golden judgments than by at once taxing the patience and 
humiliating the self-opinion of your judges. To obtain your 
end. your words must be as indefinite as their thoughts : and 
how vague and general these are even on objects of sense, the 
few who at a mature age have seriously set about the disci- 
pline of their faculties, and have honestly taken stock, best 
know by the recollection of their own state. To be admired 
you must make your auditors believe at least that they under- 
stand what you say; which be assured, they never will, 
under such circumstances, if it be worth understanding, or if 
you understand your own soul. But while your prevailing 
motive is to be compared and appreciated, is it credible, is 
it possible, that you should in earnest seek for a knowledge 
which is and must remain a hidden light, a secret treasure ? 
Have you children, or have you lived among children, and do 
you not know, that in all things, in food, in medicine, in all 
their doings and abstainings they must believe in order to ac- 
quire a reason for their belief ? But so it is with religious 
truth for all men. These we must all learn as children. The 
ground of prevailing error on this point is the ignorance, that 
in spiritual concernments to believe and to understand are 
not diverse things, but the same thing in different periods of 
its growth. Belief is the seed, received into the will, of which 
the understanding or knowledge is the flower, and the thing- 
believed is the fruit. Unless ye believe ye cannot under- 
stand : and unless ye be humble as children, ye not only will 
not, but ye cannot believe. Of such therefore is the King- 
dom of Heaven. Yea, blessed is the calamity that makes us 
humble : though so repugnant thereto is our nature, in our 



196 



AIDS TO REFLECTION. 



present state, that after a while, it is to be feared, a second 
and sharper calamity would be wanted to cure us of our pride 
in having become so humble. 

Lastly, there are among us, though fewer and less in fash- 
ion than among our ancestors, persons who, like Shaftesbury, 
do not belong to " the herd of Epicurus," yet prefer a philo- 
sophic paganism to the morality of the Gospel. Now it 
would conduce, methinks, to the child-like humility we have 
been discoursing of, if the use of the term, virtue, in that high, 
comprehensive, and notional sense in which it was used by 
the ancient Stoics, were abandoned, as a relic of Paganism, 
to these modern Pagans : and if Christians restoring the word 
to its original import, namely, manhood or manliness, used 
it exclusively to express the quality of fortitude ; strength of 
character in relation to the resistance opposed by nature 
and the irrational passions to ihe dictates of reason ; energy 
of will in preserving the line of rectitude tense and firm against 
the warping forces and treacheries of temptation. Surely, it 
were far less unseemly to value ourselves on this moral 
strength than on strength of body, or even strength of intel- 
lect. But we will rather value it for ourselves : and bearing 
in mind the old adage, Quis custodiet ipsum custodem ? we 
will value it the more, yea, then only will we allow it true 
spiritual worth, when we possess it as a gift of grace, a boon 
of mercy undeserved, a fulfilment of a free promise (1 Cor. 
x. 13.) What more is meant in this last paragraph, let the 
venerable Hooker say for me in the following. 

APHORISM VI. 

HOOKER 

What is virtue but a medicine, and vice but a wound ? — 
Yea, we have so often deeply wounded ourselves with medi- 
cine, that God hath been fain to make wounds medicinable ; 
to cure by vice where virtue hath stricken ; to suffer the just 
man to fall, that being raised he may be taught what powe,- 
it was which upheld him standing. I am not afraid to affirm 



ON SPIRtTUAL K&LIGION. L91 

it boldly with St. Augustine, that men puffed up through a 
proud opinion of their own sanctity and holiness received a 
benefit at the hands of God, and are assisted with his grace 
when with his grace they are not assisted, but permitted (and 
that grieviously) to transgress. Whereby, as they were 
through over-great liking of themselves supplanted (hipped 
up)-, so the dislike of that which did supplant them may es- 
tablish them afterwards the surer. Ask the very soul of Pe- 
ter and it shall undoubtedly itself make you this answer: — 
My eager protestations made in the glory of my spiritual 
strength I am ashamed of. But my shame and the tears 
with which my presumption and my weakness were bewail- 
ed, recur in the songs of my thanksgiving. My strength 
had been my ruin, my fall hath proved my stay. 

APHORISM VII. 

The being and providence of One Living God, holy, gra- 
cious, merciful, the Creator and Preserver jf all things, and a 
Father of the righteous ; the Moral Law in its 1 utmost height, 
breadth and purity ; n state of retribution after death ; the 
2 resurrection of the dead ; and a day of Judgment — all these 
were known and received by the Jewish people, as establish- 
ed articles of the national Faith, at or before the proclaiming 
of Christ by the Baptist. They are the ground-work of Chris- 
tianity, and essentials in the Christian Faith, but not its char- 
acteristic and peculiar doctrines : except indeed as they are 
confirmed, enlivened, realized and brought home to the whole 
being of man, head, heart, and spirit, by the truths and in- 
fluences of the Gospel. 

Peculiar to Christianity are : 

I. The belief that a Mean of Salvation has been effected 
and provided for the human race by the incarnation of the 
Son of God in the person of Jesus Christ ; and that his life on 
earth, his sufferings, death, and resurrection, are not only 
proofs and manifestations, but likewise essential and effect- 



198 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

ive parts of the great redemptive act, whereby also the obsta- 
cle from the corruption of our nature is rendered no longer 
insurmountable. 

H. The belief in the possible appropriation of this bene- 
fit by repentence and faith, including the aids that render an 
effective faith and repentance themselves possible. 

III. The belief in the reception (by as many as shall be 
heirs of salvation) of a living and spiritual principle, a seed 
of life capable of surviving this natural life, and of existing in 
a divine and immortal state. 

IV. The belief of the awakening of the spirit in them 
that truly believe, and in the communion of the spirit, thus 
awakened, with the Holy Spirit. 

V. The belief in the accompanying and consequent gifts, 
graces, comforts, privileges of the Spirit, which acting pri- 
marily on the heart and will, cannot but manifest themselves 
in suitable works of love and obedience, that is, in right acts 
with right affections, from right principles. 

VI. Further, as Christians we are taught, that these 
Works are the appointed siuns and evidences of our Faith ; 
and that, under limitation of the power, the means, and the 
opportunities afforded us individually, they are the rule and 
'measure, by which we are bound and enabled to judge, of 
what spirit we are. 

VII. All these, together with the doctrine of the Fathers 
re-proclaimed in the everlasting Gospel, Ave receive in full as- 
surance, that God beholds and will finally judge us with a 
merciful consideration of our infirmities, a gracious accept- 
ance of our sincere though imperfect strivings, a forgiveness 
of our defects, through the mediation, and a completion of 
our deficiencies by the perfect righteousness of the Man 
Christ Jesus, even the Word that was in the beginning with 
God, and who, being God, became man for the redemption of 
mankind. 



ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 199 

COMMENT. 

1 earnestly entreat the Reader to pause awhile, and to join 
with me in reflecting on the preceding Aphorism. It has 
been my aim throughout this work to enforce two points : — 
1. That Morality arising out of the reason and conscience 
of men, and Prudence which in like manner flows out of the 
understanding and the natural wants and desires of the indi- 
vidual, are two distinct things. 2. That morality with pru- 
dence as its instrument has. considered abstractedly, not only 
a value but a worth in itself. Now the question is (and it is 
a question which every man must answer for himself) '-'From 
what you know of yourself; of your own heart and strength ; 
and from what history and personal experience have led you 
to conclude of mankind generally ; dare you trust to it? — 
Dare you trust to it ? To it, and to it alone ? If so, well ! 
It is at your own risk. I judge you not. Before Him, who 
cannot be mocked, you stand or fall. But if not, if you 
have had too good reason to know, that your heart is deceit- 
ful and your strength weakness : if you are disposed to ex- 
claim with Paul — the Law indeed is holy, just, good, spiritu- 
al : but I am carnal, sold under sin : for that which I do, I 
allow not ; and what I would, that I do not ! — in this case, 
there is a Voice that says, Come unto me ; and I will give 
you rest. This is the voice of Christ: and the conditions, 
under which the promise was given by him, are that vou be- 
lieve in him, and believe his word. And he has further as- 
sured you, that if you do so. you will obey him. You are. in 
short, to embrace the Christian Faith as your religion — those 
truths which St. Paul believed after his conversion, and not 
those only which he believed no less undoubtingly while he 
was persecuting Christ, and an enemy of the Christian Reli- 
gion. With what consistency could I olTer you this volume 
as aids to reflection, if I did not call on you to ascertain in 
the first instance what these truths are ? But these I could 
not lay before you without first enumerating certain other 
points of belief, which though truths, indispensable truths. 



2G0 AiDS TO KLKLECTION. 

and truths comprehended or rather pre-supposed in the 
Christian scheme, are ye1 not these truths. (John i. 17.) 

While doing this, I was aware that the positions, in the 
fust paragraph of the preceding aphorism, to which the nu- 
merical marks are affixed, will startle some of my readers. — 
Let the following sentences serve for the notes corresponding 
to the marks : 

1 Be you holy ; even as God is holy. — What more does 
he require of thee, O man ! than to do justice, love mercy, 
and walk humbly with the Lord thy God 1 To these sum- 
mary passages from Moses and the Prophets (^\hc first ex- 
hibiting the closed, the second the expanded, hand of the 
Moral Law) I might add the authorities of Grotius and oth- 
er more orthodox and not less learned divines, for the opinion 
that the Lord's Prayer was a selection, and the famous pas- 
sage [The hour is coming dye. John v. 28, 29.] a citation by 
our Lord from the Liturgy of the Jewish Church. But it 
will be sufficient to remind the reader, that the apparent dif- 
ference between the prominent moral truths of the Old and 
those of the New Testament results from the latter having 
been written in Greek ; while the conversations recorded by 
the Evangelists took place in Syro-Chaldaic or Aramaic. — 
Hence it happened that where our Lord cited the original 
text, his biographers substituted the Septuagint Version, 
while our English Version is in both instances immediate and 
literal — in the Old Testament from the Hebrew Original, in 
the New Testament from thf. freer Greek translation. The 
text, I give you anew commandment, has no connection 
with the present subject. 

-There is a current mistake on this point likewise, though 
this article of the Jewish belief is not only asserted by St. 
Paul, but is elsewhere spoken of as common to the Twelve 
Tribes. The mistake consists in supposing the Pharisees to 
have been a distinct sect, and in strangely over-rating the 
number of the Sadducees. The former were distinguished 
not by holding, as matters of religious belief, articles different 



ON SPIRITUAL KELIGION. 201 

from the Jewish Church at large ; but by their pretences to a 
more rigid orthodoxy, a more scrupulous performance. They 
were, in short (if I may dare use a phrase which I dislike as 
profane and denounce as uncharitable), the Evangelicals and 
strict professors of the day. The latter, the Sadducees, 
whose opinions much more nearly resembled those of the 
Stoics than the Epicureans (a remark that will appear para- 
doxical to those only who have abstracted their notions of the 
Stoic philosophy from Epictctus, Mark Antonine, and cer- 
tain brilliant inconsistencies of Seneca), were a handful of 
rich men, Romanized Jews, not more numerous than Infidels 
among us, and holden by the people at large in at least equal 
abhorrence. Their great argument was : that the belief of a 
future state of rewards and punishments injured or destroy- 
ed the purity of the Moral Law for the more enlightened clas- 
ses, and weakened the influence of the laws of the land for 
the people, the vulgar multitude. 

I will now suppose the reader to have thoughtfully repe- 
rused the paragraph containing the tenets peculiar to Chris- 
tianity, and if he have his religious principles yet to form, I 
should expect to overhear a troubled murmur : How can I 
comprehend this ? How is this to be proved ? To the first 
question I should answer : Christianity is not a theory, or a 
speculation ; but a life ; — not a philosophy of life, but a life 
and a living process. To the second : Try it. It has been 
eighteen hundred years in existence : and has one individu- 
al left a record, like the following ? "I tried it ; and it did 
not answer. I made the experiment faithfully according to 
the directions ; and the result has been, a conviction of my 
own credulity." Have you in your own experience, met 
with any one in whose words you could place full confidence, 
and who has seriously affirmed : — " I have given Christianity 
a fair trial. I was aware that its promises were made only 
conditionally. But my heart bears me witness, that I have 
to the utmost of my power complied with these condition?. 
36 



202 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

Both outwardly and in the discipline of my inward acts and 
affections, I have performed the duties which it enjoins, and I 
have used the means which it prescribes. Yet my assurance 
of its truth has received no increase. Its promises have not 
been fulfilled : and I repent me of my delusion 1 If nei- 
ther your own experience nor the history of almost two thou- 
sand years has presented a single testimony to this purport ; 
and if you have read and heard of many who have lived and 
died bearing witness to the contrary : and if you have your- 
self met with some one, in whom on any other point you 
would place unqualified trust, who has on his own experi- 
ence made report to you, that he is faithful who promised, 
and what he promised he has proved himself able to perform ; 
is it bigotry, if I fear that the unbelief, which prejudges and 
prevents the experiment, has its source elsewhere than in the 
uncorrupted judgment ; that not the strong free mind, but 
the enslaved will, is the true original infidel in this instance ? 
It would not be the first time, that a treacherous bosom-sin 
had suborned the understandings of men to bear false witness 
against its avowed enemy, the right though unreceived own- 
er of the house, who had long warned it out, and waited only 
for its rejection to enter and take possession of the same. 

I have elsewhere in the present work explained the differ- 
ence between the understanding and the reason, by reason 
meaning exclusively the speculative or scientific power so 
called, the vous or mens of the ancients. And wider still is 
the distinction between the understanding and the spiritual 
mind. But no gift of God does or can contradict any other 
gift, except by misuse or misdirection. Most readily there- 
fore do I admit, that there can be no contrariety between 
revelation and the understanding ; unless you call the fact, 
that the skin, though sensible of the warmth of the sun, can 
convey no notion of its figure or its joyous light, or of the col- 
ors which it impresses on the clouds, a contrariety between 
the skin and eye ; or infer that the cutaneous and the optic 
nerves contradict each other. 



ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 203 

But we have grounds to believe, that there are yet other 
rays or effluences from the sun, which neither feeling nor 
sight can apprehend, but which are to be inferred from the 
effects. And were it even so with regard to the spiritual sun, 
how would this contradict the understanding or the reason > 
It is sufficient proof of the contrary, that the mysteries in 
question are not in the direction of the understanding or the 
(speculative) reason. They do not move on the same line or 
plane with them, and therefore cannot contradict them. But 
besides this, in the mystery that most immediately concerns 
the believer, that of the birth into a new and spiritual life, the 
common sense and experience of mankind come in aid of 
their faith. The analogous facts, which we know to be true, 
not only iacilitate the apprehension of the facts promised to 
us, and expressed by the same words in conjunction with a 
distinctive epithet ; but being confessedly not less incompre- 
hensible, the certain knowledge of the one disposes us to the 
belief of the other. It removes at least all objections to the 
truth of the doctrine derived from the mysteriousness of its 
subjects. The life, we seek after, is a mystery ; but so both 
in itself and in its origin is the life we have. In order to 
meet this question, however, with minds duly prepared, there 
are two preliminary inquiries to be decided ; the first respect- 
ing the purport, the second respecting the language, of the 
Gospel. 

First then of the purport, namely, what the Gospel does 
not, and what it does profess to be. The Gospel is not a sys- 
tem of theology, nor a syntagma of theoretical propositions 
and conclusions for the enlargement cf speculative know- 
ledge, ethical or metaphysical. But it is a history, a series of 
facts and events related or announced. These do indeed in- 
volve, or rather I should say they at the same time are, most 
important doctrinal truths ; but still facts and declarations of 
facts. 

Secondly of the language. This is a wide subject. But 
the point, to which T chiefly advert, is the necessity of tho- 



204 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

roughly understanding the distinction between analogous and 
metaphorical language. Analogies, are used in aid of con- 
viction : metaphors, as means of illustration. The language 
is analogous, wherever a thing, power, or principle in a higher 
dignity is expressed by the same thing, power, or principle in 
a lower but more known form. Such, for instance, is the 
language of John iii. 6. That which is born of the flesh, 
is flesh ; that which is born of the Spirit, is Spirit. The 
latter half of the verse contains the fact asserted ; the former 
half the analogous fact, by which it is rendered intelligible. 
If any man choose to call this metaphorical or figurative, f I ask 
him whether with Hobbes and Bolingbroke he applies the 
same rule to the moral attributes of Deity ? Whether he re- 
gards the divine justice, for instance, as a metaphorical term, 
a mere figure of speech ? If he disclaims this, then I answer, 
neither do I regard the words, born again, or spiritual life, as 
figures or metaphors. I have only to add, that these analo- 
gies are the material, or (to speak chemically) the base, of 
symbols and symbolic expressions ; the nature of which is 
always tautegorical, that is expressing the same subject but 
with a difference, in contra-distinction from metaphors and 
similitudes, which are always allegorical, that is, expressing a 
different subject but with a resemblance.* 

Of metaphorical language, on the other hand, let the fol- 
lowing be taken as instance and illustration. I am speaking, 
we will suppose, of an act, which in its own nature, and as 
a producing and efficient cause, is transcendent ; but which 
produees sundry effects, each of which is the same in kind 
with an effect produced by a cause well known and of ordi- 
nary occurrence. Now when I characterize or designate 
this transcendent act, in exclusive reference to these its ef- 
fects, by a succession of names borrowed from their ordinary 
causes : not for the purpose of rendering the act itself, or the 
manner of the agency, conceivable, but in order to show the 

* See the Statesman's Manual, p. 230. 2nd edit. Ed. 



Off SPIRITUAL RELIUIOX. 205 

nature and magnitude of the benefits received from it, and 
thus to excite the due admiration, gratitude, and love in the 
receivers ; in this case I should be rightly described as speak- 
ing metaphorically. And in this case to confound the simi- 
larity, in respect of the effects relatively to the recipients, 
with an identity in respect of the causes or modes of causa- 
tion relatively to the transcendent act or the Divine Agent, is 
a confusion of metaphor with analogy, and of figurative with 
literal ; and has been and continues to be a fruitful source of 
superstition or enthusiasm in believers, and of objections and 
prejudices to infidels and sceptics. But each of these points 
is worthy of a separate consideration : and apt occasions 
will be found of reverting to them severally in the following 
aphorisms, or the comments thereto attached. 

APHORISM VIII 

LEIGHTOff. 

Faith elevates the soul not only above sense and sensible 
things, but above reason itself. As reason corrects the errors 
which sense might occasion, so supernatural faith corrects 
the errors of natural reason judging according to sense. 

COMMENT. 

My remarks on this aphorism from Leighton cannot be bet- 
ter introduced, or their purport more distinctly announced, 
than by the following sentence from Harrington, with no oth- 
er change than is necessary to make the words express, 
without aid of the context, what from the context it is evi- 
dent was the writer's meaning. "The definition and prop- 
er character of man — that, namely, which should contradis- 
tinguish him from the animals — is to be taken from his rea- 
son rather than from his understanding : in regard that in oth- 
er creatures there may be something of understanding, but 
there is nothing of reason." 1 

Sir Thomas Brown, in his Religio Medici, complains, that 
there are not impossibilities enough in religion for his active 



206 AIDS TO RKFLECTiON. 

faith ; and adopts by choice and in f/ee preference such in- 
terpretations of certain texts and declarations of Holy Writ, 
as ]. lace them in irreconcilable contradiction to the demon- 
strations of science and the experience of mankind, because 
(says he) "I love to lose myself in a mystery, and 'tis my sol- 
itary recreation to pose my apprehension with those invol- 
ved enigmas and riddles of iho Trinity and Incarnation ;" — 
and because he delights (as thinking it no vulgar part of faith) 
to believe a thing not only above but contrary to reason, and 
against the evidence of our proper senses. For the worthy 
knight could answer all the objections of the Devil and rea- 
son "with the odd resolution he had learnt of Tertullian : Cer- 
ium est quia impossible est. It is certainly true because it 
is quite impossible !" Now this I call Ultra-fidianism.* 



* There is this advantage in the occasional use of a newly minted term 
or title, expressing the doctrinal schemes of particular sects or parties, that 
it avoids the inconvenience that presses on cither side, whether we adopt 
the name which the party itself has taken up by which to express its pecu- 
liar tenets, or that by which the same party is designated by its opponents. 
If we take the latter, it most often happens that either the persons are in- 
sidiously aimed at in the designation of the principles, and that the name 
implies some consequence or occasional accompaniment of the principles 
denied by the parties themselves, as applicable to them collectively. On 
the other hand, convinced as I am, that current appellations are never whol- 
ly indifferent or inert : and that, when employed to express the character- 
istie belief or object of a religious confederacy, they exert on the many a 
great and constant, though insensible, influence ; I cannot but fear that in 
adopting the former I may be sacrificing the interests of truth beyond what 
the duties of courtesy can demand or justify. I have elsewhere 
stated my objections to the word Unitarians, as a name which in its proper 
sense can belong only to the ma'intainers of the truth impugned by the per- 
sons, who have chosen it as their designation. " For vnlty or unition, and 
indistinguishable unicity or sameness, are incompatible terms. We nev- 
er speak of the unity of attraction, or the unity of repulsion ; but of the 
unity of attraction and repulsion in each corpuscle. Indeed, the essential 
diversity of the conceptions, unity and sameness, was among the elementa- 
ry principles of the old logicians ; and Leibnitz, in his critique on Wisso- 
watius, has ably exposed the sophisms grounded on the confusion of the 
two terms. But in the exclusive sense, in which the name, Unitarian, is 
appropriated by the Sect, and in which they mean it to be understood, it is 
a presumptuous boast andm uncharitable calumny. No one of the Chur- 



ON SPIR1IUAL. RELIGION. 207 

Again, there is a scheme constructed on the principle o{ 
retaining the social sympathies, that attend on the name of 
believer, at the least possible expenditure of belief ; a scheme 
of picking and choosing Scripture texts for the support of 
doctrines, that had been learned beforehand from the higher 
oracle of common sense ; which as applied to the truths of 
religion, means the popular part of the philosophy in fashion. 

ches to which they on this article of the Christian Faith stand opposed 
Greek or Latin, over adopted the term. Trini — or Tri-uni-tarians as their 
ordinary and proper name : and had it been otherwise, yet unity is assur- 
edly no logical opposite to Tri-unity, which expressly includes it. The 
triple alliance is a fortiori an alliance. The true designation of their char- 
acteristic tenet, and which would simply and inoffensively express a fact 
admitted on all sides, is Psilanthropism, or the assertion of the mere human- 
ity of Christ." t 

I dare not hesitate to avow my regret that any scheme of doctrines or 
tenets should be the subject of penal law : though I can easily conceive, 
that any scheme of doctrines or tenets should be the subject of penal law : 
though I can easily conceive, that an}- scheme, however excellent in itself, 
may be propagated, and however false or injurious, may be assailed, in a 
manner and by menus that would make the advocate or assailant justly 
punishable. But then it is the manner,, the means, that constitute the 
crime. The merit or demerit of the opinions themselves depends on their 
originating and determining causes, which may differ in every different 
believer, or are certainly known to Him alone, who commanded us, Judge 
not, hsl ye Iti judged. At all events, in the present, state of the law, I do 
not see where we can begin, or where we can stop, without inconsistency 
and consequent hardship. Judging by all that we can pretend to know or 
aie entitled to infer, who among us will take on himself to deny that the 
late Dr. Priestley was agood and benevolent man, as sincere in his love, as 
he was intrepid and indefatigable in his pursuit, of truth ! Now let us con- 
struct three parallel tables, the first containing the articles of belief, moral 
and theological, maintained by the venerable Hooker, as the representa- 
tive of the Established Church, each article being distinctly lined and 
numbered ; the second the tenets and persuasions of Lord Herbert, as the 
representative of the Platonizing Deists; and the third, those of Dr. Priest- 
ley. Let the points, in which the second and third agree with or differ 
froiii the first, he considered as to the comparative number modified by the 
comparative weight and importance of the several points — and let any com- 
petent and upright man be appointed the arbiter, to decide accordiug t" his 
best judgment, without any reference to the truth of the opinions, which of 



I " Blessed are ye that sow beside all waters." p. 3(»7. 2nd edit. Ed. 



°,08 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

Of course, the scheme differs at different times and in differ- 
ent individuals in the number of articles excluded ; but, it 
may always be recognized by this permanent character, that 
its object is to draw religion down to the believer's intellect, 
instead of raising his intellect up to religion. And this ex- 
treme I call Minimi-fidianism. 

Now if there be one preventive of both these extremes 



the two differed from the first more widely. I say this, well aware that it 
would be abundantly more prudent to leave it unsaid. But I say it in the 
conviction, that the liberality in the adoption of admitted misnomers in the 
naming of doctrinal systems, if only they have been negatively legalized, 
is but an equivocal proof of liberality towards the persons who dissent from 
us. On the contrary, I more than suspect that the former liberality does 
in too many men arise from a latent pre-disposition to transfer their re- 
probation and intolerance from the doctrines to the doctors, from the belief 
to the believers. Indecency, abuse, scoffing on subjects dear and awful 
to a multitude of our fellow-citizens, appeals to the vanit}-, appetites, and 
malignant passions of ignorant and incompetent judges — these are flagrant 
overt-acts, condemned by the law written in the heart of every honest man, 
Jew, Turk, and Christian. These are points respecting which the hum- 
blest honest man feels it his duty to hold himself infallible, and dares not 
hesitate in giving utterance to the verdict of his conscience in the jury- 
box as fearlessly as by his fireside. It is far otherwise with respect to mat' 
ters of faith and inward conviction : and with respect to these I say — "Tol- 
erate no belief that j'ou judge false and of injurious tendency : and arraign 
no believer. The man is more and other than his belief: and God only 
knows, how small or how large a part of him the belief in question may be 
for o-ood or for evil. Resist'every false doctrine : and call no man heretic. 
The false doctrine does not necessarily make the man a heretic; but an 
evil heart can make any doctrine heretical." 

Actuated by these principles, I have objected to a false and deceptive 
designation in the case of one system. Persuaded that the doctrines, enu- 
merated in p. 197 — 8, are not only essential to the Christian religion, but 
those which contra-distinguish the religion as Christian, I merely repeat 
this persuasion in another form, when I assert, that (in my sense of the 
word, Christian) TJnitarianism is not Christianity. But do I say, that those, 
who call themselves Unitarians, are not Christians ? God forbid ! I 
would not think, much less promulgate, a judgment at once so presump- 
tuous and so uncharitable. Let a friendly antagonist retort on my scheme 
of faith, in the like manner : 1 shall respect him all the more for his con- 
sistency as a reasoner, and not confide the less in his kindness towards me 
as his neighbour and fellow-Christian. This latter and most endearing 
name I scareelv know how to withhold even from my friend, Hyman Hur- 



ON M-ilUTUAL RELIGION. 209 

more efficient than another, and preliminary to all the rest, it 
is the being made fully aware of the diversity of reason and 
the understanding. And this is the more expedient, because 
though there is no want of authorities ancient and modern 
for the distinction of the faculties, and the distinct appropria- 
tion of the terms, yet our best writers too often confound the 
one with the other. Even Lord Bacon himself.who in his No- 



witz, as often as I read what every reverer of Holy Writ and of the English 
Bible ought to read, his admirable Vindiciee Hebraicae ! It has trembled on 
the verge, as it were, of my lips, every time I have conversed with that 
pious, learned, strong-minded, and single-hearted Jew, an Israelite indeed, 
and without guile — 

Cujiis cura scqui naturam, legibus uti, 

Et mcntem vitiis, or a negate doles ; 
Virtutes opihus, vcrum praponere falso, 

Nil vacuum sensu dicere, nil ' facere, 
Post obitum vivam* secum, scrum requiescam, 
JS'ecjiat melior sors mca sortc sua.' 

From a poem of Hildebert on his Master ihe 
persecuted Bcrengarius. 

Under the same feelings I conclude this aid to reflection by applying the 
principle to another misnomer not less inappropriate and far more influen- 
tial. Of those, whom I have found most reason to respect and value, many 
have been members of the Church of Rome : and certainly did not honor 
those the least, who scrupled even in common parlance to call our Church 
a reformed Church. A similar scruple would not, methinks, disgrace a 
Protestant as to the use of the words, Catholic or Roman Catholic ; and if 
(tacitly at least, and in thought) he remembered that the Romish anti-Cath- 
olic Church would more truly express the fact — Romish, to mark that the 
corruptions in discipline, doctrine, and practice do, for the larger part, owe 
both their origin and perpetuation to the Romish Court, and the local tri- 
bunals of the City of Rome ; and neither are or ever have been Catholic, 
that is, universal throughout the Roman Empire, or even in the whole Lat- 
in or Western Church— and anti-Catholic, because no other Church acts 
on so narrow and excommunicative a principle, or is characterized by such 
a jealous spirit of monopoly. Instead of a Catholic (universal) spirit, it 
may be truly described as a spirit of particularism counterfeiting Catholicity 
by a negative totality, and heretical self-circumscription— in the first in- 
stances cutting off, and since then cutting herself off from, all the other 



F do not answer for the corrupt Latin 
2? 



210 



AIXJ3 TO KEFLECTION. 



vum Organvm has so incomparably set forth the nature of" 
the difference, and the unfitness of the latter faculty for the 
objects of the former, does nevertheless in sundry places use 
the term reason where he means the understanding, and some- 
times though less frequently, understanding for reason. In 
consequence of thus confounding the two terms, or rather of 
wasting both words for the expression of one and the same 
faculty, he left himself no appropriate term for the other and 
higher gift of reason, and was thus under the necessity of 
adopting fantastical and mystical phrases, for example, the 
dry light (lumen siccum), the lucific vision and the like, 
meaning thereby nothing more than reason in contra-distinc- 
tion from the understanding. Thus too in the preceding aph- 

members of Christ's body. For the rest, I think as that man of true catho- 
lic spirit and apostolic zeal, Richard Baxter, thought; and my readers will 
thank me for conveying my reflections in his own words, in the following 
golden passage from his Life, "faithfully published from his own original 
MSS. by Mathew Silvester, 16fi 6." 

" My censures of the Papists do much differ from what they were at first. 
I then thought that their errors in the doctrines of faith were their most 
dangerous mistakes. But now I am assured that their misexpressions and 
misunderstanding us, with our mistakings of them and inconvenient ex- 
pressing of our own opinions, have made the difference in most points ap- 
pear much greater than it is ; and that in some it is next to none at all. — 
But the great and unreconcileable differences lie in their Church tyranny > 
in the usurpations of their hierarchy, and priesthood, under the name of spir- 
itual authority exercising a temporal lordship ; in their corruptions and 
abasement of God's worship ; but above all in their systematic befriending 
of ignorance and vice. 

"■At first I thought that Mr. Perkins well proved that a Papist cannot go 
beyond a reprobate ; but now I doubt not that God hath many sanctified 
ones among them, who have received the true doctrines of Christianity, so 
practically, that their contradictory errors prevail not against them, to hin- 
der their love of God and their salvation : but that their errors are like a 
conquerable dose of poison, which a healthful nature doth overcome. Jind 
I can never believe that a man may not be saved by that religion, which doth 
but bring him to the true love of God and to a heavenly mind and life : nor 
that God will ever east a soul into hell that loveth him. Also at first it would 
disgrace any doctrine with me, if I did but hear it called Popery and anti- 
Christian ; but I have long learned to be more impartial, and to know that 
Satan can use even the names of Popery and Antichrist, to bring a truth 
into suspicion and discredit." — Baxter's life, Part I. p. 131. 






ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 211 

orism, by reason Leighton means the human understanding', 
the explanation annexed to it being (by a noticeable coinci- 
dence), word for word, the very definition which the founder 
of the Critical Philosophy gives of the understanding — name- 
ly, "the faculty judging according to sense." 

ON THE DIFFERENCE IN KIND OF REASON 
AND THE UNDERSTANDING. 

SCHEME OF THE ARGUMENT. 

On the contrary, reason is the power of universal and ne- 
cessary convictions, the source and substance of truths above 
sense, and having their evidence in themselves. Its pre- 
sence is always marked by the necessity of the position affirm- 
ed : this necessity being conditional, when a truth of reason 
is applied to facts of experience, or to the rules and maxims 
of the understanding ; but absolute, when the subject matter 
is itself the growth or offspring of reason. Hence arises a 
distinction in reason itself, derived from the different mode 
of applying it, and from the objects to which it is directed : 
accordingly as we consider one and ihe same gift, now as 
the ground of formal principles, and now as the origin of 
ideas. Contemplated distinctively in reference to formal (or 
abstract^ truth, it is the speculative reason ; but in reference 
to actual (or moral) truth, as the fountain of ideas and the 
light of the conscience, we name it the practical reason. — 
Whenever by self-subjection to this universal light, the will 
of the individual, the particular will, has become a will of rea- 
son, the man is regenerate : and reason is then the spirit of 
the regenerated man, whereby the person is capable of a 
quickening inter-communion with the Divine Spirit. And 
herein consists the mystery of Redemption, that this has been 
rendered possible for us. Aad so it is written ; the first 
man Adam was made a living soul, the last Adam a quick- 
ening Spirit. (1. Cor. xv. 45.) We need only compare 
the passages in the writings of the Apostles Paid and John, 



212 AIDS TO hKFT.ECTION. 

concerning the Spirit and spiritual gifts, with those in the 
Proverbs and in the Wisdom of Solomon respecting reason, 
to be convinced that the terms are synonymous.* In this at 
once most comprehensive and most appropriate acceptation 
of the word, reason is pre-eminently spiritual, and a spirit, 
even our spirit, though an effluence of the same grace by 
which we are privileged lo say Our Father ! 

On the other hand, the judgments of the understanding are 
binding only in relation to the objects of our senses, which 
we reflect, under the forms of the understanding. It is, as 
Leighton rightly defines it, "the faculty judging according to 
sense." Hence we add the epithet human without tautolo- 
gy : and speak of the human understanding in disjunction 
from that of beings higher or lower than man. But there is 
in this sense, no human reason. There neither is nor can be 
but one reason, one and the same, even the light that light- 
eth every man's individual understanding, discourse of rea- 
son — one only, yet manifold ; it goeth through all un- 
derstanding, and remaining in itself regenerateth all other 
powers. The same writer calls it likewise an influence from 
the Glory of the Almighty, this being one of the names of 
the Messiah, as the Logos, ar co-eternal Filial Word. And 
most noticeable for its coincidence is a fragment of Heracli- 
tus, as I have indeed already noticed elsewhere ; — " To dis- 
course rationally it behoves us to derive strength from that 
which is common to all men : for all human understandings 
are nourished by the one Divine Word." 

Beasts, we have said, partake of understanding. If any 
man deny this, there is a ready way of settling the question. 
Let him give careful perusal to Hiiber's too small volumes on 
bees and ants, (especially the latter), and to Kirby and 
Spence's Introduction to Entomology : and one or other of 
two things must follow. He will either change his opinion 
as irreconcilable with the facts ; or he must deny the facts, 



* See Wisd. of Sol. c. vii. 22—23*, 27. Ed. 



ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 213 

which yet I cannot suppose, inasmuch as the denial would 
be tantamount to the no less extravagant than uncharitable 
assertion, that Huber, and the several eminent naturalists, 
French and English, Swiss, German, and Italian, by whom 
Hiiber's observations and experiments have been repeated 
and confirmed, had all conspired to impose a series of false- 
hoods and fairy-tales on the world. I see no way, at least, 
by which he can get out of this dilemma, but by over-leaping 
the admitted rules and fences of all legitimate discussion, 
and either transferring to the word, understanding, the defi- 
nition already appropriated to reason, or defining understand- 
ing in genere by the specific and accessional perfections 
which the human understanding derives from its co-existence 
with reason and free-will in the same individual person ; in 
plainer words, from its being exercised by a self-conscious 
and responsible creature. And, after all, the supporter of 
Harrington's position would have a right to ask him, by what 
other name he would designate the faculty in the instances 
referred to ? If it be not understanding, what is it ? 

In no former part of this volume has the author felt the 
same anxiety to obtain a patient attention. For he does not. 
hesitate to avow, that on his success in establishing the va- 
lidity and importance of the distinction between reason and 
the understanding, he rests his hopes of carrying the reader 
along with him through all that is to follow. Let the student 
but clearly see and comprehend the diversity in the things 
themselves, and the expediency of a correspondent distinc- 
tion and appropriation of the words will follow of itself. Turn 
back for a moment to the aphorism, and having re-perused 
the first paragraph of this Comment thereon, regard the two 
following narratives as the illustration. I do not say proof: 
for I take these from a multitude of facts equally striking for 
the one only purpose of placing my meaning out of all doubt. 

I. Huber put a dozen humble-bees under a bell-glass 
along with a comb of about ten silken cocoons so uu equal in 
height as not to be capable of standing steadily. To remedj 



214 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

this two or three of the humble-bees got upon the comb, 
stretched themselves over its edge, and with their heads 
downwards fixed their forefeet on the table on which the 
comb stood, and so with their hind feet kept the comb from 
falling. When these were weary others took their places. — 
In this constrained and painful posture, fresh bees relieving 
their comrades at intervals, and each working in its turn, did 
these affectionate little insects support the comb for nearly 
three days : at the end of which they had prepared sufficient 
wax to build pillars with. But these pillars having acciden- 
tally got displaced, the bees had recourse again to the same 
manoeuvre, till Huher pitying their hard case. &c. 

II. " I shall at present describe the operations of a sing- 
gle ant that I observed sufficiently long to satisfy my curios- 
ity. 

"■One rainy day, I observed a laborer digging the ground 
riear the aperture which gave entrance to the ant-hill. It pla- 
ced in a heap the several fragments it had scraped up, and 
formed them into small pellets, which it deposited here and 
there upon the nest. It returned constantly to the same 
place, and appeared to have a marked design, for it labored 
with ardor and perseverance. I remarked a slight furrow, 
excavated in the ground in a straight line, representing the 
plan of a path or gallery. The laborer, the whole of whose 
movements fell under my immediate observation, gave it 
greater depth and breadth, and cleared out its borders : and 
I saw at length, in which I could not be deceived, that it had 
the intention of establishing an avenue which was to lead from 
one of the stories to the under-ground chambers. This path, 
which was about two or three inches in length, and formed 
by a single ant, was opened above and boarded on each side 
by a buttress of earth ; its concavity en forme de gouttiere 
was of the most perfect regularity, for the architect had not 
left an atom too much. The work of this ant was so well 
followed and understood, that I could almost to a certainty 



ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 215 

guess its next proceeding, and the very fragment it was about 
to remove. At the side of the opening where this path ter- 
minated, was a second opening to which it was necessary to 
arrive by some road. The same ant engaged in and execu- 
ted alone this undertaking. It furrowed out and opened an- 
other path parallel to the first, leaving between each a little 
wall of three or four lines in height. Those ants who lay the 
foundation of a wall, chamber, or gallery, from working sep- 
arately occasion, now and then, a want of coincidence in the 
parts of the same or different objects. Such examples are of 
no unfrequent occurrence, but they by no means embarrass 
them. What follows proves that the workman, on discovering 
his error, knew how to rectify it. A wall had been erected 
with the view of sustaining a vaulted ceiling, still incomplete, 
that had been projected from the wall of the opposite chamber: 
The workman who began constructing it, had given it too 
little elevation to meet the opposite partition upon which it 
was to rest. Had it been continued on the original plan, it 
must infallibly have met the wall at about one half of its height, 
and this it was necessasy to avoid. This state of things very 
forcibly claimed my attention, when one of the ants arriving 
at the place, and visiting the works, appeared to be struck 
by the difficulty which presented itself ; but this it as soon 
obviated, by taking down the ceiling and raising the wall up- 
on which it reposed. It then, in my presence, constructed 
a new ceiling with the fragments of the former one." — Ilii- 
ber's Natural History of Ants, p. 38 — 41. 

Now I assert, that the faculty manifested in the acts here 
narrated does not differ in kind from understanding, and that 
it does so differ from reason. What I conceive the former to 
be, physiologically considered, will be shown hereafter. In 
this place I take the understanding as it exists in men, and 
in exclusive reference to its intelligential functions ; and it is 
in this sense of the word that I am to prove the necessity of 
contra-distinguishing it from reason. 



216 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

Premising then, that two or more subjects having the same 
essential characters are said to fall under the same general 
definition, I lay it down, as a self-evident truth, — (it is, in 
fact, an identical proposition) — that whatever subjects fall 
under one and the same general definition are of one and the 
same kind : consequently, that which does not fall under this 
definition, must differ in kind from each and all of those that 
do. Difference in degree does indeed suppose sameness in 
kind ; and difference in kind precludes distinction from dif- 
ference of degree. Heterogensa non comparari, ergo nee 
distiugui, possunt. The inattention to this rule gives rise to 
the numerous sophisms comprised by Aristotle under the head 
of (i£Tafia.<fts £»V aXKoysyog, that is, transition into a new kind; 
or the falsely applying to X what had been truly asserted of 
A, and might have been true of X, had it differed from A in 
its degree only. The sophistry consists in the omission to no- 
tice what not being noticed will be supposed not to exist-; 
and the silence respecting the difference in kind is tanta- 
mount to an assertion that the difference is merely in degree. 
But the fraud is especially gross, where the heterogeneous 
subject, thus clandestinely slipt in, is in its own nature insus- 
ceptible of degree : such as, for instance, certainty or circu- 
larity, contrasted with strength, or magnitude. 

To apply these remarks for our present purpose, we have 
only to describe Understanding and Reason, each by its 
characteristic qualities. The comparison will show the dif- 
ference. 

UNDERSTANDING. REASON. 

1. Understanding is dis- 1. Reason is fixed, 
cursive. 2. The reason in all its 

2. The understanding in decision appeals to itself as 
all its judgments refers to some the ground and substance of 
other faculty as its ultimate their truth. (Heb. vi. 13.) 
authority. 3. Reason of contempla- 
tion. Reason indeed is much 



Off SFUUTUAL RELICION. 217 

3. Understanding is the nearer to Sense tlian to Un r 
faculty ol* reflection. derstandjng; for Reason (says 

our great Hooker) is a direct 
aspect of truth, an inward 
beholding, having a similar 
relation to the intelligible or 
spiritual, as sense has to the 
material or phenomenal. 

The result is : that neither falls under the definition of the 
other. They differ in kind : and had my object been 
confined to the establishment of this fact, the preceding col- 
umns would have superseded all further disquisition. But I 
have ever in view the special interest of my youthful readers, 
whose reflective power is to be cultivated, as well as their 
particular reflections to be called forth and guided. Now 
the main chance of their reflecting on religious subjects 
aright, and their attaining to the contemplation of spiritual 
truths at all rests on their insight into the nature of this dis- 
parity still more than on their conviction of its existence. I 
now, therefore, proceed to a brief analysis of the understand- 
ing, in elucidation of the definition already given. 

The understanding then (considered exclusively as an or- 
gan of human intelligence.) is the faculty by which we reflect 
and generalize. Take, for instance any objects consisting of 
many parts, a house, or a group of houses : and if it be con- 
templated, as a whole, that is, as many constituting a one, it 
forms what, in the technical language of psychology, is called 
a total impression. Among the various component parts of 
this, we direct our attention especially to such as we recol- 
lect to have noticed in other total impressions. Then, by a 
voluntary act, we withhold our attention from all the rest to 
reflect exclusively on these : and these we henceforward use 
as common characters, by virtue of which the several objects 
are referred to one and the same sort.* Thus, the whole 



" Accordingly as we attend inon "i less i" Hie differences, the sort be 
comes, "1 course, more or less comprehensive Hence there arises forth* 
38 



218 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

process may be reduced to three acts, all depending on and 
supposing a previous impression on the senses : first, the ap- 
propriation of our attention ; 2. (and in order to the continu- 
ance of the first) abstraction, or the voluntary withholding of 
the attention ; and 3. generalization. And these are the 
proper functions of the understanding : and the power of so 
doing, is what we mean, when we say we possess understand- 
ing, or are created with the faculty of understanding. 

[It is obvious, that the third function includes the act of 
comparing one object with another. In a note (for, not to 
interrupt the argument, I avail myself of this most useful 
contrivance,) I have shown, that the act of comparing sup- 
poses in the comparing faculty, certain inherent forms, that 
is, modes of reflecting not ' referable to the objects reflected 
on, but pre-determined by the constitution and (as it were) 
mechanism of the understanding itself. And under some 
one or other of these forms * the resemblances and differen- 



systematic naturalist the necessity of subdividing the sorts into orders, clas- 
ses, families, &e. ; all which, however, resolve themselves for the mere 
logician into the conception of genus and species, that is, the comprehend- 
ing and the comprehended. 

* Were it not so, how could the first comparison have been possible ? — 
It would involve the absurdity of measuring a thing by itself But if we 
think on some one thing, the length of our own foot, and of our hand and 
arm from the elbow joint, it is evident that in order to do this, we must 
have the conception of measure. Now these antecedent and most general 
conceptions are what is meant by the constituent forms of the understand- 
ing : we call them constituent because they are not acquired by the under- 
standing, but are implied in its constitution. As rationally might a circle 
be said to acquire a centre and circumference, as the understanding to ac- 
quire these, its inherent forms, or ways of conceiving. This is what Leib- 
nitz meant, when to the old adage of the Peripatetics, Nihil in intclhctu 
quod non prius in sensu (There is nothing in the understanding not deri- 
ved from the senses, or — There is nothing conceived that was not previ- 
ously perceived :) he replied — prater intcllcctum ipsum (excepting the un- 
derstanding itself.) 

And here let me remark for once and all : whoever would reflect to any 
purpose — whoever is in earnest in his pursuit of self-knowledge, and of one 
of the principal means to this, an insight into the meaning of the words he 
uses, and the different meanings properly or improperly conveyed by one 



OS SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 219 

ces must be subsumed in order to be conceivable and a forti- 
ori therefore in order to be comparable. The senses do 
not compare, but merely furnish the materials for comparison. 
But this the reader will find explained in the note, and will 
now cast his eye back to the sentence immediately preceding 
this parenthesis. 



and the same word, accordingly as it is used in the schools or the market, 
accordingly as the kind or a high degree is intended (for example, heat, 
weight, and the like, as employed scientifically, compared with the same 
wort! used popularly) — whoever, 1 say, seriously, proposes this as his object 
must so far overcome his dislike of pedantry, and his dread of being sneer- 
ed at as a pedant, as not to quarrel with an uncouth word or phrase, till he 
is quite sure that some other and more familiar one would not only have 
expressed the precise meaning with equal clearness, but have been as like- 
ly to draw attention to this meaning exclusively. The ordinary language 
of a philosopher in conversation on popular writings, compared with the 
language he uses in strict reasoning, is as his watch compared with the 
chronometer in his observatory. He sets the former by the town-clock, or 
even, perhaps by the Dutch clock in his kitchen, not because he believes it 
right, but because his neighbours and his cook go by it. To afford the rea- 
der an opportunity for exercising the forbearance here recommended, I turn 
back to the phrase, "most general conceptions," and observe, that in strict 
and severe propriety of Language I should have said generalific or gene- 
rijic rather than general, and concipiences or conceptive acts rather than 
conceptions. 

It is an old complaint, that a man of genius no sooner appears, but the 
host of dunces are up in arms to repel the invading alien. This observation 
would have made more converts to its truth, I suspect, had it been worded 
more dispassionately and with a less contemptuous antithesis. For "dun- 
ces," let us substitute " the many," or the " ofrras xoauog " (this world) of 
the Apostle, and we shall perhaps find no great difficulty in accounting for 
the fact. To arrive at the root, indeed, and last ground of the problem, it 
would be necessary to investigate the nature and effects of the sense of dif- 
ference in the human mind where it is not holden in check by reason and 
reflection. We need not goto the savage tribes of North America, or the 
yet ruder natives of the Indian Isles, to learn how slight a degree of differ- 
ence will, in uncultivated minds, call up a sense of diversity, and inward 
perplexity and contradiction, as if the strangers were, and vet were not, of 
the same kind with themselves. Who has not had occasion to observe the 
effect which the gesticulations and nasal tones of a Frenchman produce on 
our own vulgar ? Here we may see the origin and primary import of our 
unkindness. It is a sense of unkind, and not the mere negation but the pos- 
itive opposite of the sense of hind. Alienation, aggravated now by fear, 



220 AIDS To REFLECTION. 

Now when a person speaking to us of any particular ob- 
ject or appearance refers it by means of some common char- 
acter to a known class (which he does in giving it name), we 
say, that We understand him ; that is, we understand his 
words. The name of a thing, in the original sense of the 
word name, (nomen, vev/xsvpy^ ^intelligible, id quod intilligi- 



now by contempt, and not seldom by a mixture of both, aversion, hatred, 
enmity, are so many successive shapes of its growth and metamorphosis. — 
In application to the present case, it is sufficient to say, that Pindar's re- 
mark ori sweet music holds equally true of genius : as many as are not de- 
lighted by it are disturbed, perplexed, irritated. The beholder either re- 
cognizes it as a projected form of his own being, that moves before him 
with a glory round its head, or recoils from it as from a spectre. But this 
speculation would lead me too far; I must be content with having referred 
to it as the ultimate ground of the fact, and pass to the more obvious and 
proximate causes. And as the first, I would rank the person's not under- 
standing what yet he expects to understand, and as if he had a right to do 
iso., Ah original mathematical work, or any other that requires peculiar 
arid (so to say) technical marks and rymbols, will excite no uneasy feel- 
ings — not in the mind of a competent reader, for he understands it ; and 
not with others, because they neither expect nor are expected to understand 
it. The second place we may assign to the misunderstanding, which is al- 
most sure to follow in cases where the incompetent person, finding no out- 
ward marks (diagrams, and arbitrary signs, and the like) to inform him at 
first sight, that the subject is one which he does not pretend to understand, 
and to be ignorant of which does not detract from his estimation as a man 
of abilities generally) will attach some meaning to what he hears or reads ; 
and as he is out of humor with the author, it will most often be such a mean- 
ing as he can quarrel with and exhibit in a ridiculous or offensive point of 
view: 

But above all, the whole world almost of minds, as far as we regard intel- 
lectual efforts, may be divided into two classes of the busy-indolent and 
lazy-indolent. To both alike all thinking is painful, and all attempts to 
rouse them to think, whether in the re -examination of their existino- con- 
victions; or for, the reception of new light, are irritating. " It may all be 
very deep and clever ; but really one ought to be quite sure of it before one 
wrenches one's brain to find out what it is. 1 take up a book as a com- 
panion, with whom I can have an easy cheerful chit-chat on what we both 
know beforehand, or else matters of fact. In our leisure hours we have a 
right to relaxation and amusement." 

Well ! but in their studious hours, when their bow is to be bent, when 
I hry are apud Musas, or amidst the Muses ? Alas ! it is just the same i 
The same craving for amusement, that is to be away from the Muses ! fot 



ON SlMUltUAI, RELlOldtf. '2'2l 

tur) expresses that which is understood in an appearance, 
that which we place (or make to stand) lender it, as the con- 
dition of its real existence, and in proof that it is not an acci- 
dent of the senses, or affection of the individual, not a phan- 
tom or apparition, that is, an appearance which is only an ap- 
pearance. (See Gen. ii. 19,20, and in Psalm, xx. Land in 
many other places of the Bible, the identity of nomen with 
nn men, that is, invisible power and presence, the nomen sub- 



relaxation, that is, the unbending of a bow which in fact had never been 
strung ! There are two ways of obtaining their applause. The first is : — 
Enable them to reconcile in one and the same occupation the love of sloth 
and hatred of vacancy ! Gratify indolence, and yet save them from ennui 
— in plain English, from themselves ! For, spite of their antipathy to dry 
reading, the keeping company with themselves is, after all, Hie insufferable 
annoyance : and the true secret of their dislike to a work of thought and 
inquiry lies in its tendency to make them acquainted with their own per- 
manent being. The other road to their favor is, to introduce to them their 
own thoughts and predilections, tricked out in the fine language, in which 
it would gratify their vanity to express them in their own conversation, and 
with which they can imagine themselves showing off : and this (as has 
been elsewhere remarked) is the characteristic difference between the sec- 
ond-rate writers of the last two or three generations, and the same class un- 
der Elizabeth and the Stuarts. In the latter we find the most far-fetched 
and singular thoughts in the simplest and most native language ; in the for- 
mer, the most obvious and common-place thoughts iri the most far-fetched 
and motley language. But lastly, and as the sine qua non of their patron- 
age, a sufficient arc must be left for the reader's mind to oscillate in — free- 
dom of choice, 

To make the shifting cloud be what you please, 
save only where the attraction of curiosity determines the line of motion. 
The attention must not be fastened down : and this every work of genius, 
not simply narrative, must do bei >re it, can be justly appreciated, 

In former times a popular work meant one that adapted the results of stu- 
dious meditation or scientific research to the capacity of the people, pre 
sent'mir in the concrete, by instances and examples, what had been ascer 
tamed in the abstract and by discovery of the law. Now, on the other 
hand, that is a popular work which gives back to the people their own er- 
rors and prejudices, and flatters the many by creating them under the title 
of the I'lniLic, into a supreme and inappellable tribunal of intellectual ex- 
cellence. 

P. S. In a continuous work, the Frequent insertion and length of notes 
would need an apology : in a book like this, of aphorisms and detached com- 
ments none is necessary, it being understood beforehand that the sauce and 
the garnish are to occupy the greater part of the dish. 



22*2 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

stantivum of all real objects; and the ground of their reality, 
independently of the affections of sense in the percipient). 
In like manner, in a connected succession of names, as the 
speaker passes from the one to the other, we say that we can 
understand his discourse ( discursio intellectus, discursus, 
his passing rapidly from one thing to another). Thus, 
in all instances, it is words, names, or, if images, yet images 
used as words or names, that are the only and exclusive sub 
jects of understanding. In no instance do we understand a 
thing in itself; but only the name to which it is referred. 
Sometimes indeed, when several classes are recalled conjoint- 
ly, we identify the words with the object — though by courte- 
sy of idiom rather than in strict propriety of language. Thus 
we may say that we understand a rainbow, when recalling 
successively the several names for the several sorts of colours, 
we know that they are to be applied to one and the same 
phenomenon, at once distinctly and simultaneously ; but 
even in common speech we would not say this of a single col- 
our. No one would say he understands red or blue. He 
sees the colour, and had seen it before in a vast number and 
Variety of objects ; and he understands the word red, as re- 
ferring his fancy or memory to this his collective experience. 
If this be so, and so it most assuredly is — if the proper 
functions of the understanding be that of generalizing the 
notices received from the senses in order to the construction 
of names: of referring particular notices (that is, impressions 
or sensations) to their proper names ; and, vice vesra, names 
to their correspondent class or kind of notices — then it fol- 
lows of necessity, that the understanding is truly and accu- 
rately defined in the words of Leighton and Kant, a faculty 
judging according to sense. 

Now whether in defining the speculative reason (that is, 
the reason considered abstractly as an intellective power we 
call it "the source of necessary and universal principles, ac- 
cording to which the notices of the senses are either affirmed 
or denied ;" or describe it as 'the power by which we are en- 



ON SPIRITUAL UKLICION. ^Z'i 

ablcd to draw from particular and contingent appearances 
universal and necessary conclusions :"* it is equally evident 
that the two definitions differ in their essential characters, and 
consequently the subjects differ in kind. 

* Take a familiar illustration. My sight and touch convey to me a certain 
impression, towliicli my understanding applies its pre -conceptions (concep- 
lus antecedentes et gencralissirlti) of quantity and relation, and thus refers it 
to the class and name of three-cornered bodies — we will suppose it to be the 
iron of a turf-spade. It compares the sides, and finds that any two mea- 
sured as one are greater than the third ; and according to a law of the imagin- 
ation, there arises a presumption that in all other bodies of the same figure 
(that is, three-cornered and equilateral) the same proportion exists. After 
this, the senses have been directed successively to a number of three-cor- 
nered bodies of unequal sides — and in these too the same proportion has been 
found without exception, till at length it becomes a fact of experience, that 
in all triangles hitherto seen, the two sides together are greater than the 
third : and there will exist no ground or analogy for anticipating an excep- 
tion to a rule, generalized from so vast a number of particular instances. 
So far and no farther could the understanding carry us : and as far as this 
"the faculty, judging according to sense," conducts niajiy of the inferior 
animals, if not in the same, yet in instances analogous and fully equivalent. 

The reason supersedes the whole process, and on the first conception 
presented by the understanding in consequence of the first sight of a tri- 
angular figure, of whatever sort it might chance to be, it affirms with an 
assurance incapable of future increase, with a perfect certainty, that in all 
possible triangles any two of the inclosing sides will and must be greater 
than the third. In short, understanding in its highest form of experience 
remains commensurate with the experimental notices of the senses from 
which it is generalized. Reason, on the other hand, either predetermines 
experience, or avails itself of a past^experience tosuperesde its necessity in 
all future time ; and affirms truths which no sense could perceive nor ex- 
periment verify, nor experience confirm. 

Yea, this is the test and character of a truth so affirmed, that in its own 
proper form it is inconceivable. For to conceive is a function of the under- 
standing, which can be exercised only on subjects subordinate thereto. And 
yet to the forms of the understanding all truth must be reduced, that is to be 
fixed as an object of reflection, and to be rendered expressible. And here 
we have a second test and sign of a truth so affirmed, that it can come forth 
out of the moulds of the understanding only in the disguise of two contra- 
dictory conceptions, each of which are partially true, and the conjunction 
of both conceptions becomes the representative or expression (the exponent ) 
of a truth beyond conception and inexpressible. Examples: Before Abra- 
ham was, 1 am. — God is a circle, the centre of which is every where, and 
circumference nowhere. The soul is all in every part. 



224 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

The dependence of the understanding on the representa- 
tions of the senses, and its consequent posteriority thereto, 
as contrasted with the independence and antecedency of rea- 
son, are strikingly exemplified in the Ptoleraic System (that 
truly wonderful product and highest boast of the faculty, 



If this appear extravagant, it is an extravagance which no man can in- 
deed learn from another, but which, (were this possible,) I might have learnt 
from Plato, Kepler, and Bacon ; from Luther, Hooker, Pascal, Leibnitz, 
and Fenelon. But in this last paragraph I have, I sec, unwittingly over- 
stepped my purpose, according to which we were to take reason as a sim- 
ple intellectual power. Yet even as such, and with all the disadvantage 
of a technical and arbitrary abstraction, it has been made evident :■ — 1. that 
there is an intuitive or immediate beholding, accompanied by a conviction 
of the necessity and universality of the truth so beholden not derived from 
the senses, which intuition, when it is constructed by pure sense, gives 
birth to the science of mathematics, and when applied to objects supersenu- 
ous or spiritual is the organ of theology and philosophy : — and 2. that 
there is likewise a reflective and discursive faculty, or mediate apprehen- 
sion which, taken by itself and uninfluenced by the former, depends on the 
senses for the materials on which it is exercised, and is contained within 
the sphere of tlie senses. And this faculty it is, which in generalizing the 
notices of the senses constitutes sensible experience, and gives rise to max- 
ims or rules which may become more and more general, but can never be 
raised into universal verities, or beget a consciousness of absolute certain- 
ty; though they maybe sufficient to extinguish all doubt. (Putting reve- 
lation out of view, take our first progenitor in the 50th or 100th year of bis 
existence. His experience would probably have hoed him from all doubt, 
as the sun sank in the horizon, that it would jeappear the next morning. 
But compare this state of assurance with that which the same man would 
have had of the 37th proposition of "Euclid, supposing him like Pythagoras 
to have discovered the demonstration.) Now is it expedient, I ask, or 
conformable to the laws and purposes of language, to call two so altogeth- 
er disparate subjects by one and the same name ? Or, having two names 
in our language, should we call each of the two diverse subjects by both — 
that is, by either name, as caprice might dictate ? If not, then as we have 
the two words, reason and understanding (as indeed what language of cul- 
tivated man has not?), — what should prevent us from appropriating the 
former to the power distinctive of humanity ? We need only place the 
derivatives from the two terms in opposition (for example, " A and B are 
both rational beings ; but there is no comparison between them in point of 
intelligence," or "she always concludes rationally, though not a woman of 
much understanding") to see that we cannot reverse the order — i. e. call 
the higher gift understanding, and the lower reason. What should prevent 
usr 1 ifsked. Alas! that which has prevented us — the cause of this con- 



ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 225 

judging according to the senses !) compared with the New- 
tonian, as the offspring of a yet higher power, arranging, cor- 
recting, and annulling the representations of the senses ac- 
cording to its own inherent laws and constitutive ideas, 

APHORISM I\ 

In wonder all philosophy began ; in wonder it ends: and 
admiration fills up the interspace. But the first is the off- 
spring of ignorance : the last is the parent of adoration. The 
first is the birth-throe of our knowledge : the last is its eutha- 
nasy and apotheosis. 

SEQUELS : OR THOUGHTS SUGGESTED BY THE PRECEDING 
APHORISM. 

As in respect of the first wonder we are all on the same 
level, how comes it that the philosophic mind should, in all 
ages, be the privilege of a few ? The most obvious reason 
is this. The wonder takes place before the period of reflec- 
tion, and (with the great mass of mankind) long before the 
indvidual is capable of directing his attention freely and con- 
sciously to the feeling, or even to its exciting causes. Sur- 
prise (the form and dress which the wonder of ignorance 
usually puts on) is worn away, if not precluded, by custom 
and familiarity. So is it with the objects of the senses, and 
the ways and fashions of the world around us : even as with 

fusion in the terms — is only too obvious ; namely, inattention to the mo- 
mentous distinction in the things, and (generally) to the duty and habit 
recommended in the fifth introductory aphorism of this volume (sec p. 63). 
But the cause of this, and of all its lamentable effects and subcauses,/«'sc 
doctrine, blindness of heart, and contempt of the, loord, is best declared by 
the philosophic Apostle: they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, 
(Rom. i. 23,) and though they could not extinguish the light that 
lighteth every man, and which shone in the darkness; yet because the 
darkness could not comprehend the light, they refused to bear witness of it 
and worshipped instead, the shaping mist, which the light had drawn up- 
ward from the ground (that i.-, from the mere animal nature and instinct), 
and which that light alone had made visible, that is, by superinducing on 
the animal instinct the principle of self-consciousness. 
39 



226 AIDS TO HElTLECTiON. 

the beat of our own hearts, which we notice only in moments 
of fear and perturbution. But with regard to the concerns of 
our inward being, there is yet another cause that acts in con- 
cert with the power in custom to prevent a fair and equal 
exertion of reflective thought. The great fundamental truths 
and doctrines of religion, the existence and attributes of God 
and the life after death, are in Christian countries taught so 
early, under such circumstances, and in such close and vital 
association with whatever makes or marks reality for our 
infant minds, that the words ever after represent sensa- 
tions, feelings, vital assurances, sense of reality — rather than 
thoughts, or any distinct conception. Associated, I had ■ 
almost said identified, with the parental voice, look, touch, 
with the living warmth and pressure of the mother, on 
whose lap the child is first made to kneel, within whose 
palms its little hands are folded, and the motion of whose 
eyes its eyes follow and imitate — (yea, what the blue sky is 
to the mother, the mother's upraised eyes and brow are to the 
child, the type and symbol of an invisible heaven !) — from 
within and without these great first truths, these good and 
gracious tidings, these holy and humanizing spells, in the pie- 
conformity to which our very humanity may be said to con- 
sist, are so infused that it were but a tame and inadequate 
expression to say, we all take them for granted. At a later 
period, in youth or early manhood, most of us, indeed, (in 
the higher and middle classes at least) read or hear certain 
proofs of these truths — which we commonly listen to, when 
we listen at all, with much the same feelings as a popular 
prince on his coronation day, in the centre of a fond and re- 
joicing nation, may be supposed to hear the champion's chal- 
lenge to all the non-existents, that deny or dispute his rights 
and royalty. In fact, the order of proof is most often revers- 
ed or transposed. As far at least as I dare judge from the 
goings on in my own mind, when with keen delight I first 
read the works of Derham, Nieuwentiet, and Lyonet, I should 
say that the full and life-like conviction of a gracious Creator 
is the proof (at all events, performs the office and answers all 



ON SPIRITUAL IIELIGIOH. 



227 



the purpose of a proof) of the wisdom and benevolence in the 
construction of the creature. 

Do I blame this ? Do I wish it to be otherwise ? God for- 
bid ! It is only one of its accidental, but too frequent, conse- 
quences, of which I complain, and against which I protest. 
I regret nothing that tends to make the light become the life 
of men, even as the life in the eternal Word is their only and 
single true light. But 1 do regret, that in after years — when 
by occasion of some new dispute on some old heresy, or any 
other accident, the attention has for the first time been dis- 
tinctly attracted to the superstructure raised on these funda- 
mental truths, or to truths of later revelation supplemental of 
these and not less important — all the doubts and difficulties, 
that cannot but arise where the understanding, the mind of 
the flesh, is made the measure of spiritual things ; all the 
sense of strangeness and seeming contradiction in terms ; all 
the marvel and the mystery, that belong equally to both, are 
first thought of and applied in objection exclusively to the 
latter. I would disturb no man's faith in the great articles of 
the (falsely so called^) religion of nature. But before the 
man rejects, and calls on other men to reject, the revelations of 
the Gospel and the religion of all Christendom, I would have 
him place himself in the state and under all the privations of 
a Simonidcs, when in the fortieth day of his meditation the 
sage and philosophic poet abandoned the problem in despair. 
Ever and anon he seemed to have hold of the truth ; but when 
he asked himself what he meant by it, it escaped from him, or 
resolved itself into meanings, that destroyed each other. I 
would have the sceptic, while yet a sceptic only, seriously 
consider whether a doctrine, of the truth of which a Socrates 
could obtain no other assurance than what he derived from 
his strong wish that it should be true ; and which Plato found 
a mystery hard to discover, and when discovered, communi- 
cable only to the fewest of men ; can, consonantly with his- 
tory or common sense, be classed- among the articles, the be- 
lief of which is insured to all men by their mere common 



228 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

sense ? Whether without gross outrage to fact, they can be 
said to constitute a religion of nature, or a natural theology 
antecedent to revelation, or superseding its necessity ? Yes ! 
in prevention (for there is little chance, I fear, of a cure) of 
the pugnacious dogmatism of partial reflection, I would pre- 
scribe to every man who feels a commencing alienation from 
the Catholic faith, and whose studies and attainments author- 
ise him to argue on the subjects at all, a patient and thought- 
ful perusal of the arguments and representations which 
Bayle supposes to have passed through the mind of Simoni- 
des. Or I should be fully satisfied if I could induce these 
eschewers of mystery to give a patient, manly, and Impartial 
perusal to the single treatise of Pomponatius, De Fato.* 

When they have fairly and satisfactorily overthrown the ob- 
jections and cleared away the difficulties urged by this sharp- 
witted Italian against the doctrines which they profess to re- 
tain, then let them commence their attack on those which 
they reject. As far as the supposed irrationality of the lat- 
ter is the ground of argument, I am much deceived if, on re- 
viewing their forces, they would not find the ranks woefully 
thinned by the success of their own fire in the preceding en- 
gagement — unless, indeed, by pure heat of controversy, and 
to storm the lines of their antagonists, they can bring to life 
again the arguments which they themselves killed off in the 
defence of their own positions. In vain shall we seek for 
any other mode of meeting the broad facts of the scientific 
Epicurean, or the requisitions and queries of the all-analysing 
Pyrrhonist, than by challenging the tribunal to which they 
appeal, as incompetent to try the question. In order to non- 
suit the infidel plaintiff, he must remove the cause from the 



* The philosopher, whom the Inquisition would have burnt alive as an 
atheist, had not Leo X. and Cardinal Bembo decided that the work might 
be formidable to those semi-pagan Christians who regarded revelation as a 
mere make-weight to their boasted religion of nature ; but contained noth- 
ing dangerous to the Catholic Church or offensive to a true believer. (He 
was born in 1462 and died in 1525. Ed.) 



ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. '-2'2'J 

faculty, that judges according to sense, and whose judgments, 
therefore, are valid only on objects of sense, to the superior 
courts oi conscience and intuitive reason ! The words I 
speak unto you, are Spirit, and such only are life, that is, 
have an inward and actual power abiding in them. 

But the same truth is at once shield and bow. The shaft 
of Atheism glances aside from it to strike and pierce the 
breast-plate of the heretic. Well for the latter, if, plucking 
the weapon from the wound, he recognizes an arrow from 
his own quiver, and abandons a cause that connects him with 
such confederates ! Without further rhetoric, the sum and 
substance of the argument is this ; — an insight into the prop- 
er functions and subaltern rank of the understanding may 
not, indeed, disarm the Psilanthropist of his metaphorical 
glosses, or of his versions fresh from the forge, with no other 
stamp than the private mark of the individual manufacturer ; 
but it will deprive him of the only rational pretext for having 
recourse to tools so liable to abuse, and of such perilous ex- 
ample. 

COMMENT. 

Since the preceding pages were composed, and during an 
interim of depression and disqualification, I heard with a de- 
light and an interest, that I might without hyperbole call me- 
dicinal, that the contradistinction of understanding from rea- 
son, — for which during twenty years T had been contending, 
casting my bread upon the ivaters with a perseverence which, 
in the existing state of the public taste, nothing but the deep- 
est conviction of its importance could have inspired — has 
lately been adopted and sanctioned by the present distinguish- 
ed Professor of Anatomy, in the course of lectures given by him 
at the Royal College of Surgeons, on the zoological part of 
natural history ; and, if I am rightly informed, in one of the 
eloquent and impressive introductory discourses. In explain- 
ing the nature of instinct, as deduced from the actions and 
tendencies of animals successively presented to the observa- 



'^30 



AIDS TO REFLECTION. 



tion of the comparative physiologist in the ascending scale of 
organic life — or rather, I should have said, in an attempt to 
determine that precise import of the term, which is required 
by the facts* — the Professor explained the nature of what I 
have elsewhere called the adaptive power, that is, the faculty 
of adapting means to proximate ends. [N. B. I mean here 
a relative end — that which relatively to one thing is an end, 
though relatively to some other it is in itself a mean. It is 
to be regretted that we have no single word to express those 
ends, that are not the end : for the distinction between those 
and an end in the proper sense of the term is a proper one.] 
The Professor, I say, not only explained, first, the nature of 
the adaptive power in genere, and secondly, the distinct 
character of the same power as it exists specifically and ex- 
clusively in the human being, and acquires the name of un- 
derstanding ; but he did it in a way which gave the whole 
sum and substance of my convictions, of all I had so long 
wished, and so often, but with such imperfect success, at- 
tempted to convey, free from all semblance of paradoxy, and 



* The word, instinct, brings together a number of facts into one class by 
the assertion of a common ground, the nature of which ground it deter- 
mines negatively only — that is, the word does not explain what this com- 
mon ground is ; but simply indicates that there is such a ground, and that 
different in kind from that in which the responsible and consciously volun- 
tary actions of men originate. Tims, in its true and primary import, 
instinct stands in antithesis to reason ; and the perplexity and contradicto- 
ry statements into which so many meritorious naturalists, and popular wri- 
ters on natural history (Priscilla Wakefield, Kirby, Spence, Hiiber, and even 
Reimarus) have fallen on this subject, arise wholly from their taking the 
word in opposition to understanding. I notice Ibis, because I would lose 
no opportunity of impressing on the mind of my youthful readers the im- 
portant truth that language (as the embodied and articulated spirit of the 
race, as the growth and emanation of a people, and not the work of any 
individual wit or will) is often inadequate, sometimes deficient, but never 
false or delusive. We have only to master the true origin and original 
import of any native and abiding word, to find in it, if not the solution of 
theYacts expressed bv it, yet a finger-mark pointing to the road on which 
this solution is to be sought. 



ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 231 

from all occasion of offence — omnem offendiculi* ansam prcc- 
cidens. It is, indeed for the fragmentary reader only that I 
have any scruple. In those who have had the patience to ac- 
company me so far on the up-hill road to manly principles 
I can have no reason to guard against that disposition to has- 
ty offence from anticipation of consequences — that faithless 
and loveless spirit of fear which plunged Galileo into a pri- 
sonf — a spirit most unworthy of an educated man, who ought 
to have learnt that the mistakes of scientific men had never 
injured Christianity, while every new truth discovered by 
them has either added to its evidence, or prepared the mind 
for its reception. 



* JS'ajiir quicquam addubito, quia ea eandidis omnibus facial satis. Quid 
autem facias istis qui velob ingenii pertinaciam sibi satisfieri nolint, rcl stu- 
pidiores sint quam at satisfaction/ in intelligant? Nam quemadmodum Si- 
monides dixit, Thessalos hebetiores es'sc quam utpossinta sc decipi, ita quos- 
dam vidais stupidiores quam at placed queant. Jlilhuc non mirum est inve- 
nirc quod calumnietur qui nihil aliud quavrii nisi quod calumnietur, (Erasmi 
Epist. ad Dorpium.) At all events, the paragraph passing through the 
medium of my own prepossessions, it' any fault be found with it, the fault 
probably, and the blame certainly, belongs to the reporter. 

t And which (I may add) in a more enlightened age, and in a Protestant 
country, impelled more than one Germau University to anathematize Fr. 
Hoffman's discovery of carbonic acic gas, and of its effects on animal life, 
as hostile to religion and tending to atheism ! Three or four students at the 
University of Jena, in the attempt to raise a spirit for the discovery of a 
supposed hidden treasure, were strangled or poisoned by the fumes of the 
charcoal they had been burning in a close garden-house of a vineyard near 
Jena, while employed in their magic fumigations and charms. One only 
was restored to life: and from his account of the noises and spectres (in 
his cars and eyes) as he was losing his senses, it was taken for granted that 
the bad spirit had destroyed them. Frederic Hoffman admitted that it. was 
a very bad spirit that had tempted them, the spirit of avarice and folly ; 
and that a very noxious spirit (gas, or Geist) was the immediate cause of 
their death. But he contended that this latter spirit was the spirit of char- 
coal, which would have produced the same effect, had the young men 
been chaunting psalms instead of incantations : and acquitted the Devil of 
all direct concern in the business. The theological faculty took the alarm : 
even physicians pretended to be horror-stricken at Hoffman's audacity. 
The controversy and its appendages embittered several years of this great 
and good man's life. 



•23 -2 



AIDS TO REFLECTION. 



ON INSTINCT IN CONNEXION WITH THE UNDERSTANDING. 

It is evident, that the definition of a genus or class is an 
adequate definition only of the lowest sjoecies of that genus: 
for each higher species is distinguished from the lower by 
some additional character, while the general definition in- 
cludes only the characters common to all the species. Con- 
sequently it describes the lowest only. Now I distinguish a 
genus or kind of powers under the name of adaptive power, 
and give as its generic definition — the power of selecting and 
adapting means to proximate ends ; and as an instance of the 
lowest species of this genus, I take the stomach of a caterpil- 
lar. I ask myself, under what words I can generalise the ac- 
tion of this organ; and I see, that it selects and adapts the 
appropriate means (that is, the assimilable part of the vegeta- 
ble CGiigesta) to the proximate end, that is, the growth or 
reproduction of the insect's body. This we call Vital Pow- 
er, or vita propria of the stomach ; and this being the lowest 
species, its definition is the same with the definition of the 
kind. 

Well! from the power of the stomach, I pass to the power 
exerted by the whole animal. I trace it wandering from 
spot to spot, and plant to plant, till it finds the appropriate 
vegetable ; and again on this chosen vegetable, I mark it 
seeking out and fixing on the part of the plant, bark, leaf, or 
petal, suited to its nourishment : or (should the animal have 
assumed the butterfly form,) to the deposition of its eggs, and 
the sustentation of the future larva. Here I see a power of 
selecting and adapting means to proximate ends according to 
circumstances: and this higher species of adaptive power we 
call Instinct. 

Lastly, I reflect on the facts narrated and described in the 
preceding extracts from Kiiber, and see a power of selecting 
and adapting the proper means to the proximate ends, accord- 
ing to varying circumstances. And what shall we call this 
vet higher species ? We name the former, instinct : we must 
call this Instinctive Intelligence. 



ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 23>J 

Here then we have three powers of the same kind ; life, in- 
stinct, and instinctive intelligence : the essential chara 
that define the genus existing equally in all three But in 
addition to these, I find one other character common to the 
highest and lowest: namely, that the purposes are all mani-.- 
festly predetermined by the peculiar organization of the ani- 
mals ; and though it may not be possible to discover any 
such immediate dependency in all the actions, yet the actions 
being determined by the purposes, the result is equivalent: 
and both actions and the purposes are all in a necessitated 
reference to the preservation and continuance of the particu- 
lar animal or the progeny. There is selection, but not 
choice ; volition rather than will. The possible knowledge 
of a thing, or the desire to have that thing represen table by 
a distinct correspondent thought, does not, in the animal, 
suffice to render the thing an object, or the ground of a pur- 
pose. I select and adapt the proper means to the separation 
of a stone from a rock, which I neither can, nor desire to use 
for food, shelter, or ornament : because, perhaps, I wish to 
measure the angles of its primary crystals, or, perhaps, for no 
better reason than the apparent difficulty of loosening the 
stone — sit pro ratione voluntas — and thus make a motive 
out of the absence of all motive, and a reason out of the ar- 
bitrary will to act without any reason. 

Now what is the conclusion from these premises ? Evi- 
dently this: that if I suppose the adaptive power in its high- 
est species, or form of instinctive intelligence, to co-exist with 
reason, free will and self-consciousness, it instantly becomes 
Understanding : in other word* - , that understanding differs 
indeed from the noblest form of instinct, but not in itself or 
in its own essential properties, but in consequence of its co- 
existence with far higher powers of a diverse kind in one and 
the same subject. Instinct in a rational, responsible, and 
self-conscious animal, is understanding. 

Such I apprehend to have boon the Professor's view and 

exposition of instinct — and in confirmation of its truth, I 

no 



234 AfDS TO REfi-LiECXION. 

would merely request my readers, from the numerous well 
authenticated instances on record, to recall some one of the 
extraordinary actions of dogs for the preservation of their 
masters' lives, and even for the avenging of their deaths. In 
these instances we have the third species of the adaptive 
power in connection with an apparently moral end — with an 
end in the proper sense of the word. Here the adaptive pow- 
er co-exists with a purpose apparently voluntary, and the ac- 
tion seems neither pre-determined by the organization of the 
animal, nor to the continuance of his race. It is united with 
an imposing semblance of gratitude, fidelity, and disinterest- 
ed love. We not only value the faithful brute ; we attribute 
worth to him. This, I admit, is a problem, of which I have 
no solution to offer. One of the wisest of uninspired men 
has not hesitated to declare the dog a great mystery, on ac- 
count of this dawning of a moral nature unaccompanied by 
any the least evidence of reason, in whichever of the two 
senses we interpret the word — whether as the practical rea- 
son, that is, the power of proposing an ultimate end, the de- 
terminability of the will by ideas ; or as the sciential reason, 
that is, the faculty of concluding universal and necessary 
truths from particular and contingent appearances. But in 
a question respecting the possession of reason, the absence of 
all proof is tantamount to a proof of the contrary. It is, how- 
ever, by no means equally clear to me, that the dog may not 
possess an analogon of words, which I have elsewhere shown 
to be the proper objects of the " faculty, judging according 
to sense." 

But to return to my purpose : I entreat the reader to re- 
flect on any one fact of this kind, whether occuring in his 
own experience, or selected from the numerous anecdotes of 
the dog preserved in the writings of zoologists. I will then 
confidently appeal to him, whether it is in his power not to 
consider the faculty displayed in these actions as the same in 
kind with the understanding, however inferior in degree. — 
Or should he even in these instances prefer calling it instinct. 



OH SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 



V31 



and this in confra-distinction from understanding, I call on 
him to point out the boundary between the two, the chasm or 
partition-wall that divides or separates the one from the other. 
If he can, he will have done what none before him have been 
able to do, though many and eminent men have tried hard for 
it ; and my recantation shall be among the first trophies of 
his success. If he cannot, I must infer that he is controlled 
by a dread of consequences, by an apprehension of some in- 
jury resulting to rsligion or morality from his opinion ; and I 
shall console myself with the hope, that in the sequel of this 
work he will find proofs of the directly contrary tendency. — 
Not only is this view of the understanding as differing in 
degree from instinct, and in kind from reason, innocent in its 
possible influences on the religious character, but it is an in- 
dispensable preliminary to the removal of the most formida- 
ble obstacles to an intelligent belief of the peculiar doctrines 
of the Gospel, of the characteristic articles of the Christian 
Faith, with which the advocates of the truth in Christ have to 
contend ; — the evil heart of unbelief alone excepted. 

KEILECTIONS INTRODUCTORY TO APHORISM X. 

The most momentous question a man can ask is, Have I a 
Saviour ? And yet as far as the individual querist is con- 
cerned, it is premature and to no purpose, unless another 
question has been previously put and answered, (alas ! too 
generally put after the wounded conscience lias already given 
the answer !) namely, Have I any need of a Saviour ? For 
him who needs none, (O bitter irony of the evil Spirit, 
whose whispers the proud soul takes for its own thoughts, 
and knows not how the tempter is scoffing the while !) there 
is none, as long as he feels no need. On the other hand, it 
is scarcely possible to have answered this question in the af- 
firmative, and not ask — first, in what the necessity consists ? 
secondly, whence it proceeded ? and, thirdly, how far the 
answer to this second question is or is not contained in the 
answer to the first ? I entreat the intelligent reader, who 



236 AfDg TO KEFLECTION'. 

has taken me as his temporary guide on the straight, but yet 
from the number of cross roads, difficult way of religious in- 
quiry, to halt a moment, and consider the main points that, in 
this last division of my work, have been already offered for 
his reflection. I have attempted, then, to fix the proper 
meaning of the words, nature and spirit, the one being the 
antithesis to the other : so that the most general and nega- 
tive definition of nature is, whatever is not spirit ; and vice 
versa of spirit, that which is not comprehended in nature ; or 
in the language of our elder divines, that which transcends 
nature. But nature is the term in which we comprehend all 
things that are represen table in the forms of time and space, 
and subjected to the relations of cause and effect : and the 
cause of the existence of which, therefore, is to be sought for 
perpetually in something antecedent. The word itself ex- 
presses this in the strongest manner possible : JS'atura, that 
which is about to be born, that which is always becoming. — 
It follows, therefore, that whatever originates its own acts, or 
in any sense contains in itself the cause of its own state, must 
be spiritual, and consequently supernatural : yet not on that 
account necessarily miraculous. And such must the respon- 
sible will in us be, if it be at all. 

A prior step has been to remove all misconceptions from 
the subject ; to show the reasonableness of a belief in the re- 
ality and real influence of a universal and divine spirit ; the 
capability and possible communion of such a spirit with the 
spiritual in principle ; and the analogy offered by the most 
undeniable truths of natural philosophy.* 



* It has in its consequences proved no trifling evii to the Christian world 
that Aristottle's definitions of nature are all grounded on the petty and 
rather rhetorical than philosophical antithesis of nature to art — a concep- 
tion inadequate to the demands even of his philosophy. Hence in the pro- 
gress of his reasoning, he confounds the natura naturata (that is, the sum 
total of the facts and phenomena of the senses) with an hypothetical natura 
naturans, a Goddess Nature, that has no better claim to a place in any 
sober eystem of natural philosophy than the Goddess Multitudo ; yet to 
which Aristotle not rarely gives the name and attributes of the Supreme 



ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 237 

These views of the spirit, and of the will as spiritual, form 
the ground work of my scheme. Among the numerous co- 
rollaries or appendents, the first that presented itself respects 
the question ; whether there is any faculty in man by which 
a knowledge of spiritual truths, or of any truths not abstract- 
ed from nature, is rendered possible : — and an answer is at- 
tempted in the comment on Aphorism VIII. And here I 
beg leave to remark, that in this comment the only novelty, 
and if there be merit, the only merit is — that there being two 
very different meanings, and two different words. I have 
here and in former works appropriated one meaning to ono 
of the words, and the other to the other — instead of using 
the words indifferently and by hap-hazard : a confusion, the 
ill effects of which in this instance are so great and of such 
frequent occurrence in the works of our ablest philosophers 
and divines, that I should select it before all others in proof of 
Hobbes's maxim : — that it is a short downhill passage from 
errors in words to errors in things. The difference of the 
reason from the understanding, and the imperfection and 
limited sphere of the latter, have been asserted by many both 
before and since Lord Bacon ;* but still the habit of using 
reason and understanding as synonymes acted as a disturbing 



Being. The result was, that the idea of God thus identified with this hy- 
pothetic nature becomes itself but an hypothesis, or at best but a precarious 
inference from incommensurate premises and on disputable principles ; 
while in other passages, God is confounded with (and every \\ here, in Aris- 
totle's genuine works, included in) the universe : which most grievous er- 
ror it is the great and characteristic merit of Plato to have avoided and de- 
nounced. 

* Take one passage among many from the Posthumous Tracts (1660) of 
John Smith, uol the leasl star in that bright constellation of Cambridge 
men, the Contemporaries of Jeremy Taylor. " While we refled on our 
own idea of reason, we know that our souls are not it, but only partake of 
it : and that we have it y.ara ulQt%t\ and not y.ar 0/07/1. Neither can it be 
called a faculty, but far rather a light, which we enjoy, hut the source of 
which is not in ourselves, nor rightly by any individual to be denominated 
miii"." This pure intelligence he then proceeds to contrast with the dis- 
cursive faculty, ihat is, the understanding. 



"233 AIDS TO HEFLECTION. 

force. Some it led into mysticism, others it set on explain- 
ing away a clear difference in kind into a mere superiority in 
degree : and it partially eclipsed the truth for all. 

In close connexion with this, and therefore forming the 
comment on the Aphorism next following, is the subject of 
the legitimate exercise of the understanding, audits limitation 
to objects of sense ; with the errors both of unbelief and of 
misbelief, which result from its extension beyond the sphere 
of possible experience. Whenever its form of reasoning 
appropriate only to the natural world are applied to spiritual 
realities, it may be truly said, that the more strictly logical 
the reasoning is in all its parts, the more irrational it is as a 
whole. 

To the reader thus armed and prepared, I now venture to 
present the so-called mysteries of Faith, that is, the peculiar 
tenets and special constituents of Christianity, or religion in 
spirit and in truth. In right order I must have commenced 
with the articles of the Trinity aud Apostasy, including the 
question respecting the origin of Evil, and the incarnation of 
the Word. And could I have followed this order, some dif- 
ficulties that now press on me would have been obviated. — 
But (as has already been explained) the limits of the present 
volume rendered it alike impracticable and inexpedient ; for 
the necessity of my argument would have called forth certain 
hard though most true sayings, respecting the hollowness 
and tricksy sophistry of the so-called " natural theology, " 
" religion of nature," " light of nature," and the like, which 
a brief exposition could not save from innocent misconcep- 
tions, much less protect against plausible misinterpretation. — 
And yet both reason and experience have convinced me, that 
in the greater number of Alogi, who feed on the husks of 
Christianity, the disbelief of the Trinity, the divinity of Christ 
included, has it's -origin and support in the assumed self-evi- 
dence of this natural theology, and in their ignorance of the 
insurmountable difficulties which (on the same mode of rea- 
sonig) press upon the fundamental articles of their own rem- 



ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION*. 239 

nant of a creed. But arguments, which would prove the 
falsehood of a known truth, must themselves be false, and can 
prove the falsehood of no other position in eoclem genere. 

This hint I have thrown out as a spark that may perhaps 
fall where it will kindle. And worthily might the wisest of 
men make inquisition into the the three momentous points 
here spoken of, for the purpose of a speculative insight, and 
for the formation of enlarged and systematic views of the des- 
tination of man, and the dispensation of God. But the prac- 
tical inquirer (I speak not of those who inquire for the grati- 
fication of curiosity, and still less of those who labour as stu- 
dents only to shine as disputants ; but of one, who seeks the 
truth, because he feels the want of it,) the practical inquirer I 
say, hath already placed his foot on the rock, if he have 
satisfied himself that whoever needs not a Redeemer is 
more than human. Remove from him the difficulties and 
objections that oppose or perplex his belief of a crucified Sa- 
viour; convince him of the reality of sin, which is impossible 
without a knowledge of its true nature and inevitable conse- 
quences ; and then satisfy him as to the fact historically, 
and as to the truth spiritually, of a redemption therefrom by 
Christ ; do this for him, and there is little fear that he will 
permit either logical quirks or metaphysical puzzles to con- 
travene the plain dictate of his common sense, that the sin- 
less One that redeemed mankind from sin, must have been 
more than man ; and that He who brought light and immor- 
tality into the world, could not in his own nature have been 
an inheritor of death and darkness. It is morally impossible 
that a man with these convictions should suffer the objection 
of incomprehensibility (and this on a subject of faith) to over- 
balance the manifest absurdity and contradiction in the no- 
tion of a Mediator between God and the human race, at the 
same infinite distance from God as the race for whom he me- 
diates. 

The origin of evil, meanwhile, is a question interesting 
only to the metaphysician, and in a system of moral and reli- 



240 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

gious philosophy. The man of sober mind, who seeks for 
truths that possess a moral and practical interest, is content 
to be certain, first, that evil must have had a beginning, since 
otherwise it must either be God, or a co-eternal and co-equal 
rival of God ; both impious notions, and the latter foolish to 
boot : — secondly, that it could not originate in God ; for if so 
it would be at once evil and not evil, or God would be at 
once God (that is, infinite goodness) and not God — both 
alike impossible positions. Instead therefore of troubling 
himself with this barren controversy, he more profitably turns 
his inquiries to that evil which most concerns himself, and of 
which he may find the origin. 

The entire scheme of necessary Faith may be reduced to 
two heads ; — first, the object and occasion, and secondly, the 
fact and effect, — of our redemption by Christ: and to this 
view does the order of the following Comments correspond. 
T have begun with Original Sin, and proceeded in the follow- 
ing Aphorism to the doctrine of Redemption. The Com- 
ments on the remaining Aphorisms are all subsidiary to these, 
or written in the hope of making the minor tenets of general 
belief be believed in a spirit worthy of these. They are, in 
short, intended to supply a febrifuge against aguish scruples 
and horrors, the hectic of the soul ; — and "for servile and 
thrall -like fear, to substitute that adoptive and cheerful bold- 
ness, which our new alliance with God requires of us as 
Christians." (Milton.) Not the origin of evil, not the 
chronology of sin, or the chronicles of the original sinner ; 
but sin originant, underived from without, and no passive 
link in the adamantine chain of effects, each of which is in 
its turn an instrument of causation, but no one of them a 
cause ; — not with sin inflicted, which would be a calamity ; 
— not with sin (that is, an evil tendency) implanted, for 
which let the planter be responsible ; — but I begin with ori- 
ginal sin. And for this purpose I have selected the Aphorism 
from the ablest and most formidable antagonist of this doc- 
trine. Bishop Jeremy Taylor, and from the most eloquent 



o.V SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 241 

work ot this most eloquent of divines. Had I said, of men, 
Cicero would forgive me, and Demosthenes nod assent !* 



* We have the assurance of Bishop Horsley, that the Church of Eng- 
land dues li'il demand the literal understanding of the document contained 
in the second (from verse 8) and third Chapters of Genesis as a point of 
faith, or regard a different interpretation as affecting the orthodoxy of the 
interpreter; divines of the most unimpeachable orthodoxy, and the most 
averse to the allegorizing of Scripture history in general, having from the 
earliest ages of the Christian Church adopted or permitted it in this instance 
And indeed no unprejudiced man can pretend to doubt, that if in any other 
work of Eastern origin he me1 with trees, of life and of knowledge; or talk- 
ing and conversable snakes : 

lnque reisignwm serpentem serperc jussum j 

he would want no other proofs that it was an allegory he was reading, and 
intended to be understood as such. Nor, if we suppose him conversant with 
Oriental works of any thing like the same antiquity, could it surprise him 
to find events of true history in connexion with, or historical personages 
among the actors and interlocutors of, the parable. In the temple-language 
of Egypt the serpent was the symbol of the understanding in its twofold 
function, namely, as the faculty, of means to proximate or medial ends, an- 
alogous to the instinct of the more intelligent animals, ant, bee, heaver, and 
the like, and opposed to the practical reason, as the determinant of the ul 
timate end ; and again, as the discursive and logical faculty possessed in- 
dividual!; I'\ each individual — the Zoyog si ixUaim, in distinction from the 
vovg, that is, intuitive reason, the source of ideas and absolute truths, and 
the principle of the necessary and the universal in our affirmations and 
conclusion-;. Without or in contra-vention to the reason (that is, the spirit- 
ual mind of St. Paul, and thelight thatlighteth every mini of St. John) this 
understanding (tpQuvr^ta. aaoxbg, or carnal mind) becomes the sophistic prin- 
ciple, the wily tempter to evil bj counterfeit good ; the pander and advo 
rate ofthe passions and appetites : ever in league with, and always first ap- 
plying to, the desire, as the inferior nature in man, the woman in our hu- 
manity ; and through the desire prevailing on the will (the manhood, virtus) 
against the command of the universal reason, and against the light of reason 
in the will itself. This esse ntia] inherence of an intelligential principle 
(</;<.',,• rotgoi') in the will (aQ/i. dtltjTizi',,) or rather the will itself thus con- 
sidered, the Greeks expressed by an appropriate word, fiovh',. This, but 
little differing from Origen's interpretation or hypothesis, is supported and 
confirmed by the very old tradition of the homo androgynus, that is, that 
the original man, the individual first created, was bi-sexual : a chimera, of 
which, and of many other m il traditions, the most probable expla- 

nation is, that they were originally syn flyphs or sculptures, and af- 

terwards translal I into words, yet literal! . hat is, int the common names 



242 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

APHORISM X. 



ON ORIGINAL SIN. 

JEREMY TAYLOR. 



Is there any such thing ? That is not the question. For 
it is a fact acknowledged on all hands almost : and even those 



of the several figures and images composing the symbol ; while the symbo- 
lic meaning was left to be decyphered as before, and sacred to the initiate. 
As to the abstruseness and subtlety of the conceptions, this is so far from 
being an objection to this oldest gloss on this venerable relic of Semitic, not 
impossibly ante-diluvian, philosophy, that to those who have carried their 
researches farthest back into Greek, Egyptian, Persian, and Indian anti- 
quity, it will seem a strong confirmation. Or if I chose to address the 
Sceptic in the language of the day, I might remind him, that as alchemy 
went before chemistry, and astrology before astronomy, so in all countries 
of civilized man have metaphysics outrun common sense. Fortunately 
for us that they have so ! For from all we know of the umnetaphysical 
tribes of New Holland and elsewhere, a common sense not preceded by 
metaphysics is no very enviable possession. O be not cheated, my youth- 
ful reader, by this shallow prate ! The creed of true common sense is com- 
posed of the results of scientific meditation, observation, and experiment^ 
as far as they are generally intelligible. It differs therefore indifferent 
countries, and in every different age of the same country. The common 
sense of a people is the moveable index of its average judgment and infor- 
mation. Without metaphysics science could have had no language, and 
common sense no materials. 

But to return to my subject. It cannot be denied, that the Mosaic nar- 
rative thus interpreted gives a just and faithful exposition of the birth and 
parentage and successive moments of phenomenal sin (peccatum phcenome- 
non ; crimen primarium et commune), that is, of sin as it reveals itself in 
time, and is an immediate object of consciousness. And in this sense most 
truly does the Apostle assert, that in Adam we all fell. The first human 
sinner is the adequate representative of all his successors. And with no 
less truth may it be said, that it is the same Adam that falls in every man, 
and from the same reluctance to abandon the too dear and undivorceable 
Eve : and the same Eve tempted by the same serpentine and perverted un- 
derstanding, which, framed originally to be the interpreter of the reason 
and the ministering angel of the spirit, is henceforth sentenced and bound 
over to the service of the animal nature, its needs and its cravings, depen- 
dent on the senses for all its materials, with the world of sense for its ap- 
pointed sphere : Upon thy belly shah thou go, and dust shalt thou, tat all the 
days of thy life. I have shown elsewhere, that, as the Instinct of the mere 
intelligence differs in degree not in kind, and circumstantially, not essen- 



ON SPIRITUAL KfcLIGlON. 



243 



who will not confess it in words, confess it in their com- 
plaints. For my part I cannot but confess that to be, which 
I feel and groan under, and by which all the world is mis- 
erable. 



tially, from the vis ritec, or vital power in the assimilative and digestive 
functions of the stomach and other organs of nutrition, even so the under, 
standing in itself, and distinct from the reason and conscience, differs in de- 
gree only from the instinct in the animal. It is still but a beast of the 
field, thougB more subtle than any beast of the field, and therefore in its cor 
ruption and perversion cursed fiborc any — a pregnant word ! of which, if the 
reader wants an exposition or paraphrase, he may find one more than two 
thousand years old among the fragments of the poet Menander. (See 
Cumberland's Observer, No. CL. vol. iii. p. 289, 290.) This is the under- 
standing which in its every thought is to be brought under obedience to faith ; 
which it can scarcely fail to be, if only it be first subjected to the reason, of 
which spiritual faith is even the blossoming and the fructifying process 
For it is indifferent whether I say that faith is the interpenetration of the 
reason and the will, or that it is at once the assurance and the commence- 
ment of the approaching union between the reason and the intelligible rea- 
lities, the living and substantial truths, that are even in this life its most 
proper objects. 

I have thus put the reader in possession of my own opinions respecting 
the narrative in Gen. ii. and iii. "Eerciv ovv Stf , &>g suoiyt Soy.tt. Tinog fivQoc, 
us.r/jtfliaTin y.u'i un/aioTaTui (pi7.oa6(pr l ua , ptfaiflsOi fiiv olfiaaua, avuToigit 
tpavav Ig Si t<> nay sQfit'ji-twg jrarittt: Or I might ask with Augustine, Why 
not both ? Why not at once symbol and history ? Or rather how should 
it be otherwise ? Must not of necessity the first man be a symbol of man- 
kind in the fullest force of the word symbol, rightly defined ; — a sign in- 
cluded in the idea which it represents ; — that is, an actual part chosen to 
represent the whole, as a lip with a chin prominent is a symbol of man ; or 
a lower form or species of a higher in the same kind: thus magnetism is 
the symbol of vegetation, and of the vegetative and reproductive power in 
animals; the instinct of the ant-tribe or the bee is a symbol of the human 
understanding. And this definition of the word is of great practical im- 
portance, inasmuch as the symbolical is hereby distinguished toto genere 
from the allegoric and metaphorical. But, perhaps, parables, allegories, 
and allegorical or typical applications, are incompatible with inspired Scrip- 
ture ! The writings of St. Paul are sufficient proof of the contrary. Yet 
I readily acknowledge that allegorical applications are one thing, and alle- 
gorical interpretation another : and that where there is no ground for sup- 
posing such a sense to have entered into the intent and purpose of the sa- 
cred penman, they are not to be commended. So far indeed am I from enter- 
taining any predilection for them, or any favourable opinion of the Rabbin i" 



244 AIOS TO REFLECTION. 

Adam turned his back on the sun, and dwelt in the dark 
and the shadow. He sinned, and brought evil into his su- 
pernatural endowments, and lost the sacrament and instru- 
ment of immortality, the tree of life in the centre of the gar- 
den.* He then fell under the evils of a sickly body, and a 
passionate and ignorant soul. His sin made him sickly, his 
sickness made him peevish : his sin left him ignorant, his 
ignorance made him foolish and unreasonable. His sin left 
him to his nature : and by nature, whoever was to be born 
at all, was to be born a child, and to do before he could un- 
derstand, and to be bred under laws to which he was always 
bound, but which could not always be exacted ; and he was 
to choose when he could not reason, and had passions most 
strong when he had his understanding most weak ; and the 
more need he had of a curb, the less strength he had to use 
it! And this being the case of all the world, what was every 
man's evil, became all men's greater evil ; and though alone 
it was very bad, yet when they came together it was made 
much worse. Like ships in a storm, every one alone hath 
enough to do to outride it ; but when they meet, besides the 
evils of the storm, they find the intolerable calamity of their 
mutual concussion ; and every ship that is ready to be op- 
pressed with the tempest, is a worse tempest to every vessel 

cal commentators and traditionists, from whom the fashion was derived, 
that in carrying it as far as our own Church has carried it, I follow her 
judgment, not my own. But in the first place, I know but one other part 
of the Scriptures not universally held to be parabolical, which, not without 
the sanction of great authorities, I am disposed to regard as an apologue or 
parable, namel3 T , the book of Jonah; the reasons for believing the Jewish 
Nation collectively to be therein impersonated seeming to me unanswera- 
ble. Secondly, as to the chapters now in question — that such interpreta- 
tion is at least tolerated by our Church, I have the word of one of her most 
zealous champions. And lastly, it is my deliberate and conscientious con- 
viction, that the proofs of such having been the intention of the inspired 
writer or compiler of the book of Genesis lie on the face of the narrative 
itself. 

* Rom. v. 14. — Who were they who had not sinned after the similitude of 
Adam's transgression ; and over whom notwithstanding, death reigned P 



ON SPIRITUAL, RELIGION. 4 i45 

against which it is violently dashed. So it is in mankind. 
Every man hath evil enough of his own, and it is hard for a 
man to live up to the rule of his own reason and conscience : 
But when he hath parents and children, friends and enemies, 
buyers and sellers, lawyers and clients, a family and a neigh- 
bourhood — then it is that every man dashes against another, 
and one relation requires what another denies ; and when 
one speaks another will contradict him ; and that which is 
well spoken is sometimes innocently mistaken ; and that upon 
a good cause produces an evil effect ; and by these, and ten 
thousand other concurrent causes, man is made more than 
most miserable. 

COMMENT. 

The first question we should put to ourselves, when we have 
to read a passage that perplexes us in a work of authority, 
is ; What does the writer mean by all this ? And the second 
question should be, What does he intend by all this? In 
the passage before us, Taylor's meaning is not quite clear. 
A sin is an evil which has its ground or origin in the agent, 
and not in the compulsion of circumstances. Circumstances 
are compulsory from the absence of a power to resist or con- 
trol them : and if this absence likewise be the effect of cir- 
cumstance (that is, if it have been neither directly nor indi- 
rectly caused by the agent himself,) the evil derives from the 
circumstances ; and therefore (in the Apostle's sense of the 
word, sin, when he speaks of the exceeding sinfulness of sin) 
such evil is not sin ; and the person who suffers it, or who is 
the compelled instrument of its infliction on others, may feel 
regret, but cannot feel remorse. So likewise of the word 
origin, original, or originant. The reader cannot too early be 
warned that it is not applicable, and, without abuse of lan- 
guage, can never be applied, to a mere link in a chain of ef- 
fects, where each, indeed, stands in the relation of a cause to 
those that follow, but is at the same time the effect of all that 
precede. For in these cases a cause amounts to little more 



246 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

than an antecedent. At the utmost it means only a conduc- 
tor of the causative influence; and the old axiom, causa 
causae causa causati, applies with a never-ending regress to 
each several link, up the whole chain of nature. But this is 
nature : and no natural thing or act can be called originant, 
or be truly said to have an origin* in any other. The 
moment we assume an origin in nature, a true beginning, an 
actual first — that moment we rise above nature, and are com- 
pelled to assume a supernatural power. (Gen. i. 1.) 



* This sense of the word is implied even in its metaphorical or figurative 
use. Thus we may say of a river that it originates in such or such a foun- 
tain; hut the water of a canal is derived from such or such a river. The 
power which we call nature, may be thus defined : A power subject to the 
law of continuity (lex continui ; nam innalura non datur saltus) which law 
the human understanding, by a necessity arising out of its own constitution 
can conceive only under the form of cause and effect. That this form or 
law, of cause and effect is (relatively to the world without, or to things as 
they subsist independently of our perceptions) only a form or mode of think, 
ing ; that it is a law inherent in the understanding itself (just as the sym- 
metry of the miscellaneous objects seen by the kaleidoscope inheres in, or 
results from, the mechanism of the kaleidoscope itself) — this becomes evi- 
dent as soon as we attempt to apply the preconception directly to any opera, 
tion of nature. For in this case we are forced to represent the cause as be- 
ing at the same instant the effect, and vice versa the effect as being the 
cause — a relation which we seek to express by the terms action and re-ac- 
tion ; but for which the term reciprocal action or the law of reciprocity 
(Wechselwirkung) would be both more accurate and more expressive. 

These are truths which can scarcely be too frequently impressed on the 
mind that is in earnest in the wish to reflect aright. Nature is a line in 
constant and continuous evolution. Its beginning is lost in the superna- 
tural : and for our understanding therefore it must appear as a Continuous 
line without beginning or end. But where there is no discontinuity there 
can be no origination, and every appearance of origination in nature is but 
a shadow of our own casting. It is a reflection from our own will or spirit . 
Herein, indeed, the will consists. This is the essential character by which 
will is opposed to nature, as spirit, and raised above nature, as self-deter- 
mining spirit — this namely, that it is a power of originating an act or 
state. 

A young friend, or, as he was pleased to describe himself, a pupil of mine, 
who is beginning to learn to think, asked me to explain by an instance what 
is meant by " originating an act or state." My answer was — This morn- 



ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 247 

It will be an equal convenience to myself and to my 
readers, to let it be agreed between us that we will generalize 
the word circumstance, so as to understand by it, as often as 
it occurs in this Comment, all and every thing not connected 
with the will, past or present, of a free agent. Even though 
it were the blood in the chambers of his heart, or his own in- 
most sensations, we will regard them as circumstantial, ex- 
trinsic, or from without. 



ing I awoke with a dull pain, which I knew from experience the getting up 
would remove, and yet by adding to the drowsiness and by weakening or 
depressing the volition (voluntas sensorialis scu mechanica) the very pain 
seemed to hold me back, to fix me, ;<s it were, to the bed. After a peevish 
ineffectual quarrel with this painful disinclination, I said to myself: Let 
me count twenty, and the moment I come to nineteen I will leap out of bed. 
So said, and so done. Now should you ever find yourself in the same or 
in a similar state, and should attend to the goings-on within you, you will 
learn what I mean by originating an act. At the same time you will see 
that it belongs exclusively to the will (arbitrium ;) that there is nothing 
analogous to it in outward experiences ; and that I had, therefore, no way 
of explaining it but by referring you to an act of your own, and to the pe- 
culiar self-consciousness preceding and accompanying it As we know 
what life is by being, so we know what will is by acting. That in willing 
(replied my youny; friend) we appear to ourselves to constitute an actual 
beginning, and that this seems unique, and without any example in our 
sensible experience, or in the phenomena of nature, is an undeniable fact. 
But may it not be an illusion arising from our ignorance of the antecedent 
causes? You may suppose this (I rejoined) : — that the soul of every man 
should impose a lie on itself; and that this lie, and the acting on the faith 
of its being the most important of all truths, and the most real of all reali- 
ties, should form the main contra-distinctive character of humanity, and the 
only basis of that distinction between things and persons on which our 
whole moral and criminal law is grounded ; — you may suppose this ; — I 
cannot, as I could in the case of an arithmetical or geometrical proposition, 
render it impossible for you to suppose it. Whether you can reconcile such 
a supposition with the belief of an all- wise Creator is another question. 
But, taken singly, it is doubtless in your power to suppose this. Were it 
not, the belief to the contrary would be no subject of a command, jno part of 
amoral or religious duty. You would not, however, suppose it without a 
reason. But all the pretexts that ever have been or ever can be offered for 
this supposition, are built on certain notionsof the understanding that have 
been generalized from conceptions ; which conceptions, again, are them- 
selves generalized or abstracted from objects of sense. Neither theone nor 



*248 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

In this sense of the word, original, and in the sense before 
given of sin, it is evident that the phrase, original sin, is a 
pleonasm, the epithet not adding to the thought, but only en- 
forcing it. For if it be sin, it must be original ; and a state 
or act, that has not its origin in the will, may be calamity, 
deformity, disease, or mischief; but a sin it cannot be. It 
is not enough that the act appears voluntary, or that it is in- 
tentional ; or that it has the most hateful passions or deba- 
sing appetite for its proximate cause and accompaniment. 
All these may be found in a mad-house, where neither law 
nor humanity permit us to condemn the actor of sin. The 



the other, therefore, have any force except in application to objects of 
sense, and within the sphere of sensible experience. What but absurdity 
can follow, if you decide on spirit by the laws of matter; — if you judge 
that, which if it be at all must be super-sensual, by that faculty of your 
mind, the very definition of which is " the faculty judging according to 
sense ?" These then are unworthy the name of reasons : they are only pre- 
texts. But without reason to contradict your own consciousness in defi- 
ance of your own conscience, is contrary to reason. Such and such wri- 
ters, you say, have made a great sensation. If so, I am sorry for it; but 
the fact I take to be this. From a variety of causes the more austere sci- 
ences have fallen into discredit, and impostors have taken advantage of the 
general ignorance to give a sort of mysterious and terrific importance to a 
parcel of trashy sophistry, the authors of which would not have employed 
themselves more irrationally in submitting the works of RaffVel or Titian 
to canons of criticism deduced from the sense of smell. Nay, less so. For 
here the objects and the organs are only disparate : while in the other case 
they are absolutely diverse. I conclude this note b}- reminding the reader 
that my first object is to make myself understood. When he is in full pos- 
session of my meaning, then let him consider whether it deserves to be 
received as the truth. Had it been my immediate purpose to make hit" be- 
lieve me as well as understand me, I should have thought it necessary to 
warn him that a finite will does indeed originate an act, and may originate 
a state of being ; but yet only in and for the agent himself. A finite will 
constitutes a true beginning ; but with regard to the series of motions and 
changes by which the free act is manifested and made effectual, the finite 
will gives a beginning only by coincidence with that Absolute Will, which 
is at the same time Infinite Power ! Such is the language of religion, and 
of philosophy too in the last instance. But I express the same truth in or- 
dinary language when I say, that a finite will, or the will of a finite free- 
agent, acts outwardly by confluence with the laws of nature. 



ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 249 

reason of law declares the maniac not a free-agent ; and the 
verdict follows of course — Not guilty. Now mania, as dis- 
tinguished from idiocy, frenzy, delirium, hypochondria, and 
derangement (the last term used specifically to express a sus- 
pension or disordered state of the understanding or adaptive 
power,) is the occupation or eclipse of reason, as the power 
of ultimate ends. The maniac, it is well known, is often 
found clever and inventive in the selection and adaptation of 
means to his ends ; but his ends are madness. He has lost 
his reason. For though reason, in finite beings, is not the 
will — or how could the will be opposed to the reason ? yet 
it is the condition, the sine qua non of a free-will. 

We will now return to the extract from Jeremy Taylor on 
a theme of deep interest in itself, and trebly important from 
its bearings. For without just and distinct views respecting 
the Article of Original Sin, it is impossible to understand 
aright any one of the peculiar doctrines of Christianity. — 
Now my first complaint is, that the eloquent Bishop, while he 
admits the fact as established beyond controversy by univer- 
sal experience, yet leaves us wholly in the dark as to the 
main point, supplies us with no answer to the principal ques- 
tion — why he names it Original Sin. It cannot be said, We 
know what the Bishop means, and what matters the name ? 
for the nature of the fact, and in what light it should be re- 
garded by us, depends on the nature of our answer to the 
question, whether Original Sin is or is not the right and pro- 
per designation. I can imagine the same quantum of suffer- 
ings, and yet if I had reason to regard them as symptoms of 
a commencing change, as pains of growth, the temporary de- 
formity and misproportions of immaturity, or (as in the final 
sloughing of the caterpillar) the throes and struggles of the 
waxing or evolving Psyche, I should think it no Stoical flight 
to doubt, how far I was authorized to declare the circum- 
stance an evil at all. Most assuredly I would not express or 
describe the fact as an evil having an origin in the sufferers 
themselves, of as sin. 



250 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

Let us, however, waive this objection. Let it be supposed 
that the Bishop uses the word in a different and more com- 
prehensive sense, and that by sin he understands evil of all 
kind connected with or resulting from actions — though I do 
not see how we can represent the properties even of inani- 
mate bodies (of poisonous substances for instance) except as 
acts resulting from the constitution of such bodies. Or if 
this sense, though not unknown to the mystic divines, should 
be too comprehensive and remote, I will suppose the Bishop 
to comprise under the term sin, the evil accompanying or 
consequent on human actions and purposes : — though here, 
too, I have a right to be informed, for what reason and on 
what grounds sin is thus limited to human agency ? And tru- 
ly, I should be at no loss to assign the reason. But then this 
reason would instantly bring me back to my first definition ; 
and any other reason, than that the human agent is endowed 
with reason, and with a will which can place itself either in 
subjection or in opposition to his reason — or in other words, 
that man is alone of all known animals a responsible creature 
— I neither know nor can imagine. 

Thus, then, the sense which Taylor — and with him the 
antagonists generally of this Article as propounded by the 
first Reformers — attaches to the words, Original Sin, needs 
only be carried on into its next consequence, and it will be 
found to imply the sense which I have 'given — namely, that 
sin is evil having an origin. But inasmuch as it is evil, in 
God it cannot originate :- and yet in some Spirit (that is, in 
some supernatural power) it must. For in nature there is no 
origin. Sin therefore is spiritual evil • but the spiritual in 
man is the will. Now when we do not refer to any particu- 
lar sins, but to that state and constitution of the will, which 
is the ground, condition, and common cause of all sins ; and 
when we would further express the truth, that this corrupt 
nature of the will must in some sense or other be considered 
as its own act, that the corruption must have been self-origi- 
nated ; — in this case and for this purpose we may, with no less 



ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 



251 



propriety than force, entitle this dire spiritual evil and 
source of all evil, which is absolutely such, Original Sin. I 
have said, the corrupt nature of the will. I might add that 
the admission of a nature into a spiritual essence by its own 
act is a corruption. 

Such, I repeat, would be the inevitable conclusion, if Tay- 
lor's sense of the term was carried on into its immediate con- 
sequences. But the whole of his most eloquent Treatise 
makes it certain that Taylor did not carry it on : and conse- 
quently Original Sin according to his conception, is a calam- 
ity which being common to all men must be supposed to re- 
sult from their common nature ; in other words, the universal 
calamity of human nature. 

Can we wonder, then, that a mind, a heart, like Taylor's 
should reject, that he should strain his faculties to explain 
away, the belief that this calamity, so dire in itself, should 
appear to the All-merciful God a rightful cause and motive 
for inflicting on the wretched sufferers a calamity infinitely 
more tremendous ; — nay, that it should be incompatible with 
Divine Justice not to punish it by everlasting torment ? Or 
need we be surprised if he found nothing that could recon- 
cile his mind to such a belief, in the circumstance that the 
acts now consequent on this calamity, and either directly or 
indirectly effects of the same, were, five or six thousand years 
ago in the instance of a certain individual and his accom- 
plice, anterior to the calamity, and the cause or occasion of 
the same ; — that what in all other men is disease, in these 
two persons was guilt ; — that what in us is hereditary, and 
consequently nature, in them was original, and consequently 
sin ? Lastly, might it not be presumed, that so enlightened, 
and at the snme time so affectionate, a divine would ever|fer- 
vently disclaim and reject the pretended justifications of God 
grounded on flimsy analogies drawn from the imperfections 
of human ordinances and human justice-courts — some of very 
doubtful character even as human institutes, and all of them 
just only as far as they are necessary, and rendered necessary 



252 AI»5 TO REFLECTION. 

chiefly by the weakness and wickedness, the limited powers 
and corrupt passions, of mankind ? The more confidently 
might this be presumed of so acute and practised a logician, 
as Taylor, in addition to his other extraordinary gifts, is 
known to have been, when it is demonstrable that the most 
current of these justifications rests on a palpable equivocation: 
namely the gross misuse of the word right.* An instance 



* It may conduce to the readier comprehension of this point if I say, that 
the equivoque consists in confounding the most technical sense of the 
noun substantive, right, (a sense most often determined by the genitive case 
following, as the right of property, the right of husbands to chastise their 
wives, and so forth) with the popular sense of the adjective, right: thouo-h 
this likewise has, if not a double sense, yet a double application ; — the first, 
when it is used to express the fitness of a mean to a relative end ; for ex- 
ample, "the right way to obtain the right distance at which a picture 
should be examined," and the like ; and the other, when itexpressesa per- 
fect conformity and commensurateness with the immutable idea of equity, 
or perfect rectitude. Hence the close connection between the words right- 
eousness and godliness, that is, godlikeness. 

I should be tempted to subjoin a few words on a predominating doctrine 
closely connected with the present argument — the Paleyan principle of 
general consequences ; but the inadequacy of this principle as a criterion 
of rioht and wrong, and above all its utter unfitness as a moral guide, have 
been elsewhere so fully stated (Friend, vol. ii. essay xi.), that even in again 
referring to the subject, I must shelter myself under Seneca's rule, that 
what we cannot too frequently think of, we cannot too often be made to 
recollect. It is, however, of immediate importance to the point in discus- 
sion, that the reader should be made to see how altogether incompatible the 
principle of judging by general consequences is witli the idea of an Eternal 
Omnipresent, and Omniscient Being ; — that he should be made aware of 
the absurdity of attributing any form of generalization to the All-perfect 
Mind. To generalize is a faculty and function of the human understand- 
ing, and from the imperfection and limitation of the understanding are the 
use and the necessity of generalizing derived. Generalization is a sub- 
stitute for intuition, for the power of intuitive, that is, immediate know- 
ledge. As a substitute, it is a gilt of inestimable value to a finite intelli- 
gence, such as man in his present state is endowed with and capable of ex- 
ercisino- ; but yet a substitute only, and an imperfect one to boot. To at- 
tribute it to God is the grossest anthropomorphism : and grosser instances 
of anthropomorphism than are to be found in the controversial writings on 
original sin and vicarious satisfaction, the records of superstition do not 
supply. 



ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 253 

will explain my meaning. In as far as, from the known fre- 
quency of dishonest or mischievous persons, it may have been 
found necessary, in so far is the law justifiable in giving land- 
owners the right of proceeding against a neighbour or fellow 
citizen for even a slight trespass on that which the law has 
made their property : nay, of proceeding in sundry instan- 
ces criminally and even capitally. But surely, either there 
is no religion in this world, and nothing obligatory in the pre- 
cepts of the Gospel, or there are occasions in which it would 
be very wrong in the proprietor to exercise the right, which 
yet it may be highly expedient that he should possess. On 
this ground it is, that religion is the sustaining opposite of 
law. 

That Taylor, therefore, should have striven fervently 
against the Article so interpreted and so vindicated, is (for 
me at least) a subject neither of surprise or complaint. It is 
the doctrine which he substitutes ; it is the weakness and in- 
consistency betrayed in the defence of this substitute ; it is 
the unfairness with which he blackens the established Arti- 
cle — for to give it, as it had been caricatured by a few Ultra- 
Calvinists during the fever of the (so called) Quinquarticular 
controversy, was in effect to blacken it — and then imposes 
another scheme, to which the same objections apply with even 
increased force, a scheme which seems to differ from the for- 
mer only by adding fraud and mockery to injustice : — these 
are the things that excite my wonder ; it is of these that I 
complain. For what does the Bishop's scheme amount to ? — • 
God, he tells us, required of Adam a perfect obedience, and 
made it possible by endowing him " with perfect rectitudes 
and super-natural heights of grace" proportionate to the obe- 
dience which he required. As a consequence of his disobe- 
dience, Adam lost this rectitude, this perfect sanity and pro- 
portionateness of his intellectual, moral and corporeal state, 
powers and impulses, and as the penalty of his crime, he 
was deprived of all supernatural aids and grace. The death, 
with whatever is comprised in the Scriptural sense of the 



25J AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

word, death, began from that moment to work in him, and 
this consequence he conveyed to his offspring, and through 
them to all his posterity, that is, to all mankind. They were 
born diseased in mind, body and will. For what less than 
disease can we call a necessity of error and a predisposition 
to sin and sickness ? Taylor, indeed, asserts, that though 
perfect obedience became incomparably more difficult, it was 
not, however, absolutely impossible. Yet he himself admits 
that the contrary was universal ; that of the countless mil- 
lions of Adam's posterity, not a single individual ever real- 
ized, or approached to the realization of, this possibility ; and 
(if my memory * does not deceive me) Taylor himself has 
elsewhere exposed — and if he has not, yet common-sense will 
do it for him — the sophistry in asserting of a whole what may 
be true of the whole, but is in fact true only of each of its 
component parts. Any one may snap a horse-hair : there- 
fore, any one may perform the same feat with the horse's tail. 
On a level floor (on the hardened sand, for instance, of a sea- 
beach) I chalk two parallel straight lines, with a width of 
eight inches. It is possible for a man, with a bandage over 
his eyes, to keep within the path for two or three paces : — 
therefore, it is possible for him to walk blindfold for two or 
three leagues without a single deviation ! And this possibili- 
ty would suffice to acquit me of injustice, though I had pla- 
ced man-traps within an inch of one line, and knew that 
there were pit-falls and deep wells beside the other ! 

This assertion, therefore, without adverting to its discor- 
dance with, if not direct contradiction to, the tenth and thir- 
teenth Articles of our Church, I shall not I trust, be thought 
to rate below its true value, if I treat it as an infinitesimal 
possibility that may be safely dropped in the calculation : — 



* I have, since this page was written, met with several passages in the 
Treatise on Repentance, the Holy Living and Dying, and the Worthy 
Communicant, in which the Bishop asserts without scruple the impossibili- 
ty of total obedience ; and on the same grounds as I have given. 



ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 255 

and bo proceed with the argument. The consequence then 
of Adam's crime was, by natural necessity, inherited by per- 
sons who could not (the Bishop affirms) in any sense have 
been accomplices in the crime or partakers in the guilt : and 
yet consistently with the divine holiness, it was not possible 
that the same perfect obedience should not be required of 
them. Now what would the idea of equity, what would the 
law inscribed by the Creator on the heart of man, seem to 
dictate in this case ? Surely, that the supplementary aids, 
the supernatural graces correspondent to a law above nature, 
should be increased in proportion to the diminished strength 
of the agents, and the increased resistance to be overcome 
by them. But no ! not only the consequence of Adam's act, 
but the penalty due to his crime, was perpetuated. His de- 
scendants were despoiled or left destitute of these aids and 
graces, while the obligation to perfect obedience was contin- 
ued ; an obligation too, the non-fulfilment of which brought 
with it death and the unutterable woe that cleaves to an im- 
mortal soul forever alienated from his Creator. 

Observe that all these results of Adam's fall enter into Bish- 
op Taylor's scheme of Original Sin equally as into that of the 
first Reformers. In this respect the Bishop's doctrine is the 
same with that laid down in the Articles and Homilies of the 
English Church. The only difference that has hitherto ap- 
peared, consists in the aforesaid mathematical possibility of 
fulfilling the whole law, which in the Bishop's scheme is af- 
firmed to remain still inhuman nature, or (as it is elsewhere 
expressed) in the nature of the human will.* But though it 



* Availing himself of the equivocal sense, and (I most readily admit) 
the injudicious use, of the word "free" in the — even on this account — faul- 
ty phrase, " free only to sin," Taylor treats the notion of a power in the 
will of determining itself to evil without an equal power of determining it- 
self to good, as a "foolery." 1 would this had been the only instance in his 
Deus Justificatus of that inconsiderate contempt so frequent in the polem- 
ic treaties of minor divines, who will have ideas of reason, spiritual truths 
that can only be spiritually discerned, translated for them into adequate 



xJ56 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

were possible to grant this existence of a power in all men, 
which in no man was ever exemplified, and where the non- 
actualization of such power is, a priori, so certain, that the 
belief or imagination of the contrary in any individual is ex- 
pressly given us by the Holy Spirit as a test, whereby it may 
be known that the truth is not hi him, as an infallible sign of 
imposture or self delusion ! — though it were possible to grant 
this, which, consistently with Scriptures and the principles of 
reasoning which we apply in all other cases, it is not possible 
to grant ; — and though it were possible likewise to overlook 
the glaring sophistry of concluding in relation to a series of 
indeterminate length, that whoever can do any one, can 
therefore do all ; a conclusion, the futility of which must 
force itself on the common-sense of every man who under- 
stands the proposition ; — still the question will arise — Why, 
and on what principle of equity, were the unoffending sen- 
tenced to be born with so fearful a disproportion of their 
powers to their duties ? Why were they subjected to a law 
the fulfilment of which was all but impossible, yet the penalty 
on the failure tremendous ? Admit that for those who had 
never enjoyed a happier lot, it was no punishment to be made 
to inhabit a ground which the Creator had cursed, and to 



conceptions of the understanding. The great articles of Corruption and 
Redemption are propounded to us as spiritual mysteries ; and every inter- 
pretation that pretends to explain them into comprehensible notions, does 
by its very success furnish presumptive proof of its failure. The acute- 
ness and logical dexterity, with which Taylor has brought out the false- 
hood, or semblance of falsehood, in the Calvinistic scheme, are truly ad- 
mirable. Had he next concentrated his thoughts in tranquil meditation, 
and asked himself : what then is the truth ? if a will be at all, what must 
a will be ! — he micrht, I think, have seen that a nature in a will implies al- 
ready a corruption of that will ; that a nature is as inconsistent with free 
dom as free choice with an 'incapacity of choosing aught but evil. And 
lastly, a free power in a nature to fulfil a law above nature ! — I, who love 
and honor this good and great man with all the reverence that can dwell 
" on this side idolatry," dare not retort on this assertion the charge of foole- 
ry ; but I find it a paradox as startling to my reason as any of the hard say- 
ings of the Dort divine were to his understanding. 



ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. -'V"' 

have been born with a body prone to sickness, and a sou) 
surrounded with temptation, and having the worst tempta- 
tion within itself in its own temptibility ! To have the duties 
of a spirit with the wants and appetites of an animal ! Yet 
on such imperfect creatures, with means so scanty and im- 
pediments so numerous, to impose the same task-work that 
had been required of a creature with a pure and entire nature, 
and provided with supernatural aids — if this be not to inflict 
a penalty ; — yet to be placed under a law, the difficulty of 
obeying which is infinite, and to have momently to struggle 
with this difficulty, and to live momently in hazard of these 
consequences — if this be no punishment ; — words have no 
correspondence with thoughts, and thoughts are but sha- 
dows of each other, shadows that own no substance for their 
antitype ! 

Of such an outrage on common-sense Taylor was incapa- 
ble. He himself calls it a penalty ; he admits that in effect 
it is a punishment ; nor does he seek to suppress the question 
that so naturally arises out of this admission ; — on what prin- 
ciple of equity were the innocent offspring of Adam punish-; 
ed at all ? He meets it, and puts in an answer. He states 
the problem, and gives his solution — namely, that " God on 
Adam's account was so exasperated with mankind, that be- 
ing angry he would still continue the punishment!" — " The 
case," says the Bishop, "is this: Jonathan and Michal were 
Saul's children. It came to pass, that seven of Saul's issue 
were to be hanged : all equally innocent, equally culpable." 
[Before I quote further, I feel myself called on to remind the 
reader, that these last two words were added by Taylor, 
without the least grounds in Scripture, according to which 
(2 Sam. xxi.) no crime was laid to their charge, no blame 
imputed to them. Without any pretence of culpable conduct 
on their part, they were arraigned as children of Saul, and 
sacrificed to a point of state-expedience. In recommencing 
the quotation, therefore, the reader ought to let the sentence 
conclude with the words — ] " all equally innocent. David 
33 



253 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

took the five sons of Michal, for she had left him unhand- 
somely. Jonathan was his friend : and therefore he spared 
his son, Mephibosheth. Now here it was indifferent as to 
the guilt of the persons (bear in mind, reader, that no guilt 
was attached to either of them ! ) whether David should take 
the sons of Michal, or Jonathan's ; but it is likely that as 
upon the kindness that David had to Jonathan, he spared his 
son ; so upon the just provocation of Michal, he made that 
evil fall upon them, which, it may be, they should not have 
suffered, if their mother had been kind. Adam was to God, 
as Michal to David."* 

This answer, this solution, proceeding too from a divine 
so pre-eminently gifted, and occurring (with other passages 
not less startling) in a vehement refutation of the received 
doctrine, on the express ground of its opposition to the clear- 
est conceptions and best feelings of mankind — this it is that 
surprises me. It is of this that I complain. The Almighty 
Father exasperated with those, whom the Bishop has himself 
in the same Treatise described as " innocent and most unfor- 
tunate" — the two things best fitted to conciliate love and 
pity ! Or though they did not remain innocent, yet those 
whose abandonment to a mere nature, while they were left 
amenable to a law above nature, he affirms to be the irresis- 
tible cause, that they one and all did sin ! And this decree 
illustrated and justified by its analogy to one of the worst ac- 
tions of an imperfect mortal ! From such of my readers as 
will give a thoughtful perusal to these works of Taylor, I dare 
anticipate a concurrence with the judgment which I here 
transcribe from the blank space at the end of the Deus Jus- 
tificatus in my own copy ; and which, though twenty years 
have elapsed since it was written, I have never seen reason 
to recant or modify. < : This most eloquent Treatise may be 
compared to a statue of Janus, with the one face, which we 
must suppose fronting the Calvinistic tenet, entire and fresh, 

• Vol. IX, p. 5—6. Heb. edit. 



U* SFIUITVAS. KELIGIO.t. 



'259 



as from the master's hand ; beaming with life and force, wit- 
ty scorn on the lip, and a brow at once bright and weighty 
with satisfying reason: — the other, looking toward the ' some- 
thing to be put in its place,' maimed, featureless, and 
weather-biiten into an almost visionary confusion and indis- 
tinctness." 

With these expositions 1 hasten to contrast the Scriptural 
article respecting original sin, or the corrupt and sinful na- 
ture of the human will, and the belief which alone is requi- 
red of us, as Christians. And here the first thing to be con- 
sidered, and which will at once remove a world of error, is ; 
that this is no tenet first introduced or imposed by Chris- 
tianity, and which, should a man see reason to disclaim the 
authority of the Gospel, would no longer have any claim on 
his attention, It is no perplexity that a man may get rid of 
by ceasing to be a Christian, and which has no existence for 
a philosophic Deist. It is a fact, affirmed, indeed, in the 
Christian Scriptures alone with the force and frequency pro- 
portioned to its consummate importance ; but a fact acknow- 
ledged in every religion that retains the least glimmering of 
the Patriarchal faith in a God infinite, yet personal. A fact 
assumed or implied as the basis of every religion, of which 
any relics remain of earlier date than the last and total apos- 
tasy of the Pagan world, when the faith in the great I Am 
the Creator, was extinguished in the sensual Polytheism, 
which is inevitably the final result of Pantheism, or the wor- 
ship of nature ; and the only form under which the Panthe- 
istic scheme — that, according to which the world is God, and 
the material universe itself the one only absolute being — can 
exist for a people, or become the popular creed. Thus in 
the most ancient books of the Brahmins, the deep sense of 
this fact, and the doctrines grounded on obscure traditions of 
the promised remedy, are seen struggling, and now gleam- 
ing, now flashing, through the mist of Pantheism, and pro- 
ducing the incongruities and gross contradictions of the Brah- 
min Mythology : while in the rival sect — in that most strange 



'460 UDS TO REFLECTION. 

phenomenon, the religious Atheism of the Buddhists, with 
whom God is only universal matter considered abstractedly 
from all particular forms — the fact is placed among the delu- 
sions natural to man, which, together with other supersti- 
tions grounded on a supposed essential difference between 
right and wrong, the sage is to decompose and precipitate 
from the menstruum of his more refined apprehensions ! 
Thus in denying the tact, they viritually acknowledge it. 

From the remote East turn to the mythology of the Lesser 
Asia, to the descendants of Javan, who dwelt in the tents of 
Shem, and possessed the isles. Here, again, and in the usual 
form of an historic solution, we find the same fact, and as 
characteristic of the human race, stated in that earliest and 
most venerable my thus (or symbolic parable) of Prometheus 
— that truly wonderful fable, in which the characters of the 
rebellious Spirit and of the Divine Friend of mankind 
(©sos <piXaw5pw<ffo?) are united in the same person ; and thus in 
the most striking manner noting the forced amalgamation of 
the Patriarchal tradition with the incongruous scheme of Pan- 
theism. This and the connected tale of To, which is but the 
sequel of the Prometheus, stand alone in the Greek Mytho- 
logy, in which elsewhere both gods and men are mere pow- 
ers and products of nature. And most noticeable it is, that 
soon after the promulgation and spread of the Gospel had 
awakened the moral sense, and had opened the eyes even of 
its wiser enemies to the necessity of providing some solution 
of this great problem of the moral world, the beautiful para- 
ble of Cupid and Psyche was brought forward as a rival Fall 
of Man: and the fact of a moral corruption connatural with 
the human race was again recognized. In the assertion of 
original sin the Greek Mythology rose and set. 

But not only was the fact acknowledged of a law in the 
nature of man resisting the law of God ; (and whatever is 
placed in active and direct oppugnancy to the good is, ipso 
facto, positive evil ;) it was likewise an acknowledged mys- 
tery, and one which by the nature of the subject must ever 



ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 261 

remain such — a problem, of which any other solution than 
the statement of the fact itself, was demonstrably impossible. 
That it is so, the least reflection will suffice to convince every 
man, who lias previously satisfied himself that he is a respon- 
sible being. It follows necessarily from the postulate of a 
responsible will. Refuse to grant this, and I have not a word 
to say. Concede this, and you concede all. For this is the 
essential attribute of a will, and contained in the very idea, 
that whatever determines the will acquires this power from a 
previous determination of the will itself. The will is ulti- 
mately self-determined, or it is no longer a will under the 
law of perfect freedom, but a nature under the mechanism of 
cause and effect. And if by an act, to which it had deter- 
mined itself, it has subjected itself to the determination of 
nature (in the language of St. Paul, to the law of the flesh,) 
it receives a nature into itself, and so far it becomes a nature : 
and this is a corruption of the will and a corrupt nature. It 
is also a fall of man, inasmuch as his will is the condition of 
his personality ; the ground and condition of the attribute 
which constitutes him man. And the ground-work of per- 
sonal being is a capacity of acknowledging the moral law 
(the law of the spirit, the law of freedom, the divine will) as 
that which should, of itself, suffice to determine the will to 
a free obedience of the law, the law working therein by its 
own exceeding lawfulness.* This, and this alone, is positive 
good; good in itself, and independent of all relations. 
Whatever resists, and, as a positive force, opposes this in the 
will, is therefore evil. But an evil in the will is an evil will ; 
and as all moral evil (that is, all evil that is evil without re- 
ference to its contingent physical consequences) is of the will 
this evil will must have its source in the will. And thus we 



* If the law worked on the will, it would be the working of an extrinsic 
and alien force, and, as St. Paul profoundly argues, would prove the will 
sinful. 



S62 AIDS TO li INFLECTION. 

might go back from act to act, from evil to evil ad infinitum, 
without advancing a step. 

We call an individual a bad man, not because an action is 
contrary to the law, but because it has led us to conclude 
from it some principle opposed to the law, some private max- 
im or by-law in the will contrary to the universal law of right 
reason in the conscience, as the ground of the action. But 
this evil principle again must be grounded in some other 
principle which has been made determinant of the will by 
the will's own self-determination. For if not, it must have 
its ground in some necessity of nature, in some instinct or 
propensity imposed, not acquired, another's work not our 
own. Consequently neither act nor principle could be im- 
puted ; and relatively to the agent, not original, not sin. 

Now let the grounds on which the fact of an evil inherent 
in the will is affirmable in the instance of any one man, be 
supposed equally applicable in every instance, and concern- 
ing all men : so ti'iat the fact is asserted of the individual, not 
because he has committed this or that crime, or because he 
has shown himself to be this or that man, but simply because 
he is a man. Let the evil be supposed such as to imply the 
impossibility of an individual's referring to any particular 
time at which it might be conceived to have commenced, or 
to any period of his existence at which it was not existing. 
Let it be supposed, in short, that the subject stands in no re- 
lation whatever to time, can neither be called in time nor 
out of time ; but that all relations of time are as alien and 
heterogeneous in this question, as the relations and attributes 
of space (north or south, round or square, thick or thin) are 
to our affections and moral feelings. Let the reader suppose 
this, and he will have before him the precise import of the 
Scriptural doctrine of original sin ; or rather of the fact ac- 
knowledged in all ages, and recognized, but not originating, 
in the Christian Scriptures. 

In addition to this it will be well to remind the inquirer, 
that the stedfast conviction of the existence, personality, and 



ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 963 

moral attributes of God. is presupposed in the acceptanee of 
the Gospel, or required as its indispensable preliminary. It 
is taken for granted as a point which the hearer had already 
decided for himself, a point finally settled and put at rest: 
not by the removal of all difficulties, or by any such increase 
of insight as enabled him to meet every objection of the Epi- 
curean or the Sceptic with a full and precise answer ; but 
because he had convinced himself that it was folly as well as 
presumption in so imperfect a creature to expect it ; and be- 
cause these difficulties and doubts disappeared at the beam, 
when tried against the weight and convictive power of the 
reasons in the other scale. It is, therefore, most unfair to 
attack Christianity, or any article which the Church has de- 
clared a Christian doctrine, by arguments, which, if valid, 
are valid against all religion. Is there a disputant who scorns 
a mere postulate, as the basis of any argument in support of 
the faith ; who is too high-minded to beg his ground, and 
will take it by a strong hand ? Let him fight it out with the 
Atheists, or the Manicheans ; but not stoop to pick up their 
arrows, and then run away to discharge them at Christianity 
or the Church. 

The only true way is to state the doctrine, believed as well 
by Saul of Tarsus, yet breathing out threatening s and 
slaughter against the Church of Christ, as by Paul the Apos- 
tle, fully preaching the Gospel of Christ. A moral evil is 
an evil that has its origin in a will. An evil common to all 
must have a ground common to all. But the actual existence 
of moral evil we are bound in conscience to admit ; and that 
there is an evil common to all is a fact ; and this evil must 
therefore have a common ground. Now this evil ground 
cannot originate in the Divine Will : it must therefore be re- 
ferred to the will of man. And this evil ground we call ori- 
ginal sin. It is a mystery, that is, a fact, which we see, but 
cannot explain ; and the doctrine a truth which we appre- 
hend, but can neither comprehend nor communicate. And 
such by the quality of the subject (namely, a responsible will) 
it must be, if it be truth at all. 



264 • AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

A sick man whose complaint was as obscure as his suffer- 
ings were severe and notorious, was thus addressed by a hu- 
mane stranger : "My poor Friend ! I find you dangerously 
ill, and on this account only, and having certain information of 
your being so, and that you have not wherewithal to pay for 
a physician, I have come to you. Respecting your disease, 
indeed, I can tell you nothing that you are capable of under- 
standing, more than you know already, or can only be taught 
by reflection on your own experience. But I have rendered 
the disease no longer irremediable. I have brought the reme- 
dy with me : and I now offer you the means of immediate re- 
lief, with the assurance of gradual convalescence, and a final 
perfect cure ; nothing more being required on your part, but 
your best endeavours to follow the prescriptions I shall leave 
with you. It is, indeed, too probable, from the nature of 
your disease, that you will occasionally neglect or transgress 
them. But even this has been calculated on in the plan of 
your cure, and the remedies provided, if only you are sincere 
and in right earnest with yourself, and have your heart in the 
work. Ask me not how such a disease can be conceived 
possible. Enough for the present that you know it to be re- 
al ; and I come to cure the disease, not to explain it." 

Now, what if the patient or some of his neighbours should 
charge this good Samaritan with having given rise to the mis- 
chievous notion of an inexplicable disease, involving the hon- 
or of the king of the country ; — should inveigh against him 
as the author and first introducer of the notion, though of the 
numerous medical works composed ages before his arrival, 
and by physicians of the most venerable authority, it was 
scarcely possible to open a single volume without finding 
some description of the disease, or some lamentation of its 
malignant and epidemic character ; — and, lastly, what if cer- 
tain pretended friends of this good Samaritan, in their zeal 
to vindicate him against this absurd charge, should assert 
that he was a perfect stranger to this disease, and boldly de- 



ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 265 

hy that he had ever said or done any thing connected with 
it, or that implied its existence ? 

In this apologue or imaginary case, reader ! you have the 
true bearings of Christianity on the fact and doctrine of ori- 
ginal sin. The doctrine (that is, the confession of a known 
fact) Christianity has only in common with every religion, 
and with every philosophy, in which the reality of a respon- 
sible will, and the essential difference between good and evil 
have been recognized. Peculiar to the Christian religion are 
the remedy and (for ail purposes but those of a merely specu- 
lative curiosity) the solution. By the annunciation of the 
remedy it affords all the solution which our moral interests 
require ; and even in that which remains, and must remain, 
unfathomable, the Christian finds a new motive to walk hum- 
bly with the Lord his God. 

Should a professed believer ask you, whether that which is 
the ground of responsible action in your will could in any 
way be responsibly present in the will of Adam, — answer 
him in these words : " You, Sir, can no more demonstrate 
the negative, than I can conceive the affirmative. The cor- 
ruption of my will may very warrantably be spoken of as a 
consequence of Adam's fail, even as my birth of Adam's ex- 
istence ; as a consequence, a link in the historic chain of in- 
stances whereof Adam is the first. But that it is on account 
of Adam ; or that this evil principle was, a priori, inserted 
or infused into my will by the will of another — which is in- 
deed a contradiction in terms, my will in such case being no 
will — this is nowhere asserted in the Scripture explicitly or 
by implication." It belongs to the very essence of the doc- 
trine; that in respect of original sin every man is the ade- 
quate representative of all men. What wonder, then, that 
where no inward ground of preference existed, the choice 
should be determined by outward relations, and that the first 
in time should be taken as the diagram ? Even in the book 
of Genesis the word Adam, is distinguished from a proper 

name by an article before it. Tt is the Adam, so as to r\ 
34 



266 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

press the genus, not the individual — or rather perhaps, I 
should say, as well as the individual. But that the word with 
its equivalent, the old man, is used symbolically and univer- 
sally by St. Paul.. (1 Cor. xv. 22,45. Eph.'iv. 22. Col. iii. 9. 
Rom. vi. 6.) is too evident to need any proof. 

I conclude with this remark. The doctrine of original sin 
concerns all men. But it concerns Christians in particular 
no otherwise than by its connexion with the doctrine of Re- 
demption ; and with the divinity and divine humanity of the 
Redeemer, as a corollary or necessary inference from both 
mysteries. Beware of arguments against Christianity, which 
cannot stop there, and consequently ought not to have com- 
menced there. Something I might have added to the clear- 
ness of the preceding views, if the limits of the work had per- 
mitted me to clear away the several delusive and fanciful as- 
sertions respecting the state* of our first parents, their wisdom 
science and angelic faculties, assertions without the slightest 
ground in Scripture : — or, if consistently with the wants and 
preparatory studies of those for whose use this volume was es- 
pecially intended, T could have entered into the momentous 
subject of a spiritual fall or apostasy antecedent to the for- 
mation of man — a belief the Scriptural grounds of which are 
few and of diverse interpretation, but which has been almost 
Universal in the Christian Church. Enough however has 
been given, I trust, for the reader to see and (as far as the 
subject is capable of being understood) to understand this 
long controverted article, in the sense in which alone it is 
binding on his faith. Supposing him therefore to know the 
meaning of original sin, and to have decided for himself on 
the fact of its actual existence,as the antecedent ground and 
occasion of Christianity, we may now proceed to Christianity 



* For a specimen of these Rabbinical dotages, I refer, not to the writings 
of mystics and enthusiasts, but to the shrewd and witty Dr. South, one of 
whose mostelaboratc sermons stands prominent among the many splendid 
extravaganzas on this subjec I 



UN SPIR1T1 \i. RELIGION. "^0)7 

itself, as the edifice raised on this ground, that is, to the 
great constituent article of faith in Christ, as the remedy of 
the disease — the doctrine of Redemption. 

But before I proceed to this great doctrine, let me briefly 
remind the young and friendly pupil to whom I would still 
be supposed to address myself, that in the following Apho- 
risms the word science is used in its strict and narrowest sense. 
By a science I here mean any chain of truths which are either 
absolutely certain, or necessarily true for the human mind, 
from the laws and constitution of the mind itself. In neither 
case is our conviction derived, or capable of receiving any ad- 
dition, from outward experience, or empirical data — that is 
matters of fact given to us through the medium of the senses 
— though these data may have been the occasion, or may 
even be an indispensable condition, of our reflecting on the 
former, and thereby becoming conscious of the same. On 
the other hand, a connected series of conclusions grounded 
on the empirical data, in contra-distinction from science, I 
beg leave (no better term occurring) in this place and for this 
purpose to denominate a scheme. 

APHORISM XI. 

In whatever age and country it is the prevailing mind and 
character of the nation to regard the present life as subordi- 
nate to a life to come, and to mark the present state, the 
world of their senses, by signs, instruments, and mementos 
of its connexion with a future state and a spiritual world ; — 
where the mysteries of faith are brought within the hold of 
the people at large, not by being explained away in the vain 
hope of accommodating them to the average of their under- 
standing, but by being made the objects of love by their com- 
bination with events and epochs cf history, with national 
traditions, with the monuments and dedications of ancestral 
faith and zeal, with memorial and symbolical observances, 
with the realizing influence of social devotion, and, above all. 
by early and habitual association with ads of the will, — there 



263 



AIDS TO REFLECTION. 



religion is. There, however obscured by the hay and straw 
of human will-work, the foundation is safe. In that country 
and under the predominance of such maxims, the National 
Church is no mere State-institute. It is the state itself in its 
intensest federal union ; yet at the same moment the guar- 
dian and representative of all personal individuality. For 
the Church is the shrine of morality ; and in morality alone 
the citizen asserts and reclaims his personal independence, 
his integrity. Our outward acts are efficient, and most of- 
ten possible, only by coalition. As an efficient power, the 
agent is but a fraction of unity ; he becomes an integer only 
in the recognition and performance of the moral law. Nev- 
ertheless it is most true (and a truth which cannot with safety 
be overlooked) that morality, as morality, has no existence 
for a people. It is either absorbed and lost in the quick- 
sands of prudential calculus, or it is taken up and transfigur- 
ed into the duties and mysteries of religion. And no won- 
der : since morality (including the personal being, the I am, 
as its subject) is itself a mystery, and the ground and sup- 
position of all other mysteries, relatively to man. 

APHORISM XII. 

PALEY NOT A MORALIST. 

Schemes of conduct, grounded on calculations of self-in- 
terest, or on the average consequences of actions, supposed 
to be general, form a branch of political economy, to which 
let all due honor be given. Their utility is not here ques- 
tioned. But however estimable within their own sphere such 
schemes, or any one of them in particular, may be, they do 
not belong to moral science, to which, both in kind and pur- 
pose, they are in all cases foreign, and, when substituted for 
it, hostile. Ethics, or the science of morality, does indeed 
in no wise exclude the consideration of action ; but it con- 
templates the same in its originating spiritual source, without 
reference to space, or time, or sensible existence. Whatever 



ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 269 

springs out of the perfect law of freedom, which exists only 
by its unity with the will of God, its inherence in the Word 
of God, and its communion with the Spirit of God — that (ac- 
cording to the principles of moral science) is good — it is 
light and righteousness and very truth. Whatever seeks to 
separate itself from the divine principle, and proceeds from 
a false centre in the agent's particular will, is evil — a work of 
darkness and contradiction. It is sin and essential falsehood. 
Not the outward deed, constructive, destructive, or neutral, 
— not the deed as a possible object of the senses, — is the ob- 
ject of ethical science. For this is no compost, collectori- 
um or inventory of single duties ; nor does it seek in the 
multitudinous sea, in the predetermined waves, and tides and 
currents of nature, that freedom which is exclusively an at- 
tribute of spirit. Like all other pure sciences, whatever it 
enunciates, and whatever it concludes, it enunciates and con- 
cludes absolutely. Strictness is its essential character : and 
its first proposition is, Whosoever shall keep the whole law, 
and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all. For as 
the will or spirit, the source and substance of moral good, is 
one and all in every part ; so must it be the totality, the 
whole articulated series of single acts, taken as unity, that can 
alone, in the severity of science, be recognized as the proper 
counterpart and adequate representative of a good will. Is 
it in this or that limb, or not rather in the whole body, the 
entire organismus, that the law of life reflects itself ? — 
Much less then, can the law of the Spirit work in fragments, 

APHORISM XIII. 

Wherever there exists a permanent* learned class, having 

" A learned order must be supposed to consist of three classes, First, 
those who are employed in adding to the existing sum of power and know- 
ledge. Second, and most numerous class, those whose office it is to dif- 
fuse through the community at large the practical results of science, and 
that kind and degree of knowledge and cultivation, which for all is requi- 
site or clearly useful. Third, the formers and instructors of the second — in 



270 VIJ>S TO REFLECTION. 

authority, and possessing the respect and confidence of the 
country ; and wherever the science of ethics is acknowledged 
and taught in this class, as a regular part of a learned educa- 
tion, to its future members generally, but as the special study 
and indispensable ground-work of such as are intended for 
holy orders ; — there the article of original sin will be an axi- 
om of faith in all classes. Among the learned an undisputed 
truth, and with the people a fact, which no man imagines it 
possible to deny : and the doctrine, thus inwoven in the faith 
of all, and coeval with the consciousness of each, will, for 
each and all, possess a reality, subjective indeed, yet virtual- 
ly equivalent to that which we intuitively give to the objects 
of our senses. 

With the learned this will be the case, because the article 
is the first — I had almost said spontaneous — product of the 
application of moral science to history, of which it is the inter- 
preter. A mystery in its own right, and by the necessity and 
essential character of its subject — (for the will, like the life, in 
every act and product pre-supposes to itself a past always pre- 
sent, a present that evermore resolves itself into a past) — the 
doctrine of original sin gives to all the other mysteries of re- 
ligion a common basis, a connection of dependency, an intel- 
ligibility of relation, and a total harmony, which supersede 
extrinsic proof. There is here that same proof from unity of 
purpose, that same evidence of symmetry, which in the con- 
templation of a human skeleton, flashed conviction on the 
mind of Galen, and kindled meditation into a hymn of 
praise. 

Meanwhile the people, not goaded into doubt by the les- 
sons and examples of their teachers and superiors ; not drawn 



schools, halls, and universities, or through the medium of the press. The 
second class includes not only the Parochial Clergy, and all others duly 
ordained to the ministerial office ; but likewise all the members of the le. 
gal and medical professions, who have received a learned education un- 
der accredited and responsible teachers. (Sec flic CJiurch and Stntr, p. 45, 
fyc. ?d edit. 1M 



ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 21 i 

away from the fixed stars of heaven — the form and magni- 
tude of which are the same for the naked eye of the shepherd 
as for the telescope of the sage — from the immediate truths, I 
mean of reason and conscience, to an exercise to which they 
have not been trained, — of a faculty which has been imper- 
fectly developed, — on a subject not within the sphere of the 
faculty, nor in any way amenable to its judgment ; — the peo- 
ple will need no arguments to receive a doctrine confirmed 
by their own experience from within and from without, and 
intimately blended with the most venerable traditions com- 
mon to all races, and the traces of which linger in the latest 
twilight of civilization. 

Among the revulsions consequent on the brute bewilder- 
ments of a Godless revolution, a great and active zeal for the 
interests of religion may be one. I dare not trust it, till I have 
seen what it is that gives religion this interest, till I am satis- 
fied that it is not the interests of this world ; necessary and 
laudable interests, perhaps, but which may, I dare believe, 
be secured as effectually and more suitably by the prudence 
of this world, and by this world's powers and motives. At 
all events, I find nothing in the fashion of the day to deter 
me from adding, that the reverse of the preceding — that 
where religion is valued and patronized as a supplement of 
law, or an aid extraordinary of police ; where moral science 
is exploded as the mystic jargon of dark ages ; where a lax 
system of consequences, by which every iniquity on earth 
may be (and how many have been !) denounced and defen- 
ded with equal plausibility, is publicly and authoritively 
taught as moral philosophy ; where the mysteries of religion, 
and truths supersensual, are either cut or squared for the com- 
prehension of the understanding, the faculty judging ac- 
cording to sense, or desperately torn asunder from the reason, 
nay, fanatically opposed to it ; lastly, where private* inter- 

* The author of the Stateman's Manual must l>c the most inconsistent of 
men, if lie can be justly suspected of a leaning to the Roman Church ; or 



272 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

pretation is every thing, and the Church nothing — there the 
mystery of original sin will be either rejected, or evaded, or 
perverted into the monstrous fiction of hereditary sin, — guilt 
inherited ; in the mystery of Redemption "metaphors will be 
obtruded for the reality ; and in the mysterious appurtenants 
and symbols of Redemption (regeneration, grace, the Eucha- 
rist, and spiritual communion) the realities will be evaporated 
into metaphors. 

APHORISM XIV. 

tEIGHTON 

A.s in great maps or pictures you will see the border de- 
corated with meadows, fountains, flowers, and the like, re- 
presented in it, but in the middle you have the main design : 
so amongst the works of God is it with the fore-ordained re- 
demption of man. All his other works in the world, all the 
beauty of the creatures, the succession of ages, and the things 



if it be necessary for him to repeat his fervent Amen to the wish and prayer 
of our late good old king, that " every adult in the British Empire should 
be able to read his Bible, and have a Bible to read !" Nevertheless, it may 
not be superfluous to declare, that in thus protesting against this license of 
private interpretation, I do not mean to condemn the exercise or deny the 
rightof individual judgment. I condemn only the pretended rightof every 
individual, competent and incompetent, to interpret Scripture in a sense of 
his own, in opposition to the judgment of the Church, without knowledge 
of the originals or of the languages, the history, the customs, opinions, and 
controversies of the age and country in which they were written ; and 
where the interpreter judges in ignorance or contempt of uninterrupted 
tradition, the unanimous consent of Fathers and Councils, and the univer- 
sal faith of the Church in all ages. It is not the attempt to form a judg- 
ment, which is here called in question ; but the grounds, or rather the no- 
grounds on which the judgment is formed and relied on. 

My fixed principle is : that a Christianity without a Church exercising 
spiritual authority is vanity and dissolution. And my belief is, that when 
Popery is rushing in on us like an inundation, the nation will find it to be 
so. I say Popery ;, for this too I hold for a delusion, that Romanism or Ro- 
man Catholicism is separable from Popery. Almost as readily could I sup- 
pose a circle without, a centre. 



ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 



•27 :* 



that come to pass in thorn, arc but as the bonier to this as the 
mainpiece. But as a foolish unskilful beholder, not discern- 
ing the excellency of the principal piece in such maps or pic- 
tures, gazes only on the fair border, and goes no farther — 
thus do the greatest part of us as to this great work of Cod, 
the redemption of our personal being, and the re-union of the 
human with the divine, by and through the divine humanity 
of the Incarnate Word. 



APHORISM XV 



It is a hard matter, yea, an impossible thing for thy human 
strength, whosoever thou art (without God's assistance,) at 
such a time when Moses setteth on thee with the Law (see 
Aphorism XII.), — when the holy Law written in thy heart 
accuseth and condemneth thee, forcing thee to a comparison 
of thy heart therewith, and convicting thee of the incompati- 
bleness of thy will and nature with Heaven and holiness and 
an immediate God — that then thou shouldst be able to be of 
such a mind as if no law nor sin had ever been ! I say it is 
in a manner impossible that a human creature, when he feel- 
eth himself assaulted with trials and temptations, and the con- 
science hath to do with God, and the tempted man knoweth 
that the root of temptation is within him, should obtain such 
mastery over his thoughts as then to think no otherwise than 
that from everlasting nothing hath been but only and alone 
Christ, altogether grace and deliverance ! 

COMMENT. 

In irrational agents, namely, the brute animals, the will is 
hidden or absorbed in the law. The law is their nature. In 
the original purity of a rational agent the uncorrupted will is 
identical with (he law. Nay. inasmuch as a will perfectly 
identical with the law is one with the divine will, we may 
say, that in the unfallen rational agent the will constitutes the 
35 



274 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

law. 5 * But it is evident that the holy and spiritual power 
and light, which by a prolepsis or anticipation we have nam- 
ed law, is a grace, an inward perfection, and without the 
commanding, binding and menacing character which belongs 
to a law, acting as a master or sovereign distinct from, and 
existing, as it were, externally for, the agent who is bound to 
obey it. Now this is St. Paul's sense of the word, and on 
this he grounds his whole reasoning. And hence too arises 
the obscurity and apparent paradoxy of several texts. That 
the law is a law for you ; that it acts on the will not in it, 
that it exercises an agency from without, by fear and coer- 
cion ; proves the corruption of your will, and presupposes it. 
Sin in this sense came by the law : for it has its essence, as 
sin, in that counter-position of the holy principle to the will, 
which occasions this principle to be a law. Exactly (as in all 
other points) consonant with the Pauline doctrine is the as- 
sertion of John, when speaking of the re-adoption of the re- 
deemed to be sons of God, and the consequent resumption 
(I had almost said re-absurption) of the law into the will 
(vo';j.cv Tt'Xeiov <rov <r~;." EXsuOspiag-, James i. 25. He says, For the 
law ivas given ly Moses, hut grace and truth came by 
Jesus Christ. That by the law St. Paul meant only the 
ceremonial law, is a notion that could originate only in utter 
inattention to the whole strain and bent of the Apostle's ar- 
gument. 



* In fewer words thus : For the brute animals, their nature is their law ; 
— for what other third law can be imagined, in addition to the law of nature, 
and the law of reason ? Therefore: in irrational agents the law consti- 
tutes the will. In moral and rational agents the will constitutes, or ought 
to constitute, the law : I speak of moral agents, unfallen. For the personal 
will comprehends the idea, as a reason, and it gives causative force to the 
idea, as a practical reason. But Idea with the power of realizing the same 
is a law ; or say : — the spirit comprehends the moral idea, by virtue of its 
rationality, and it gives to the idea causative power, as a will. In every 
sense, therefore, it constitutes the law, supplying both the elements of which 
it consist*, namely, the idea, and the realizing power. 



ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. '-^75 

APHORISM XVI. 

LXIOHTON AND COI.ERIDOS. 

Christ's death was both voluntary and violent. There was 
external violence : and that was the accompaniment, or at 
most the occasion, of his death. But there was internal 
willingness, the spiritual will, the will of the Spirit, and this 
was the proper cause. By this Spirit he was restored from 
death : neither indeed was it possible for him to be holden 
of it. Being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by 
the Spirit, says St. Peter. But he is likewise declared else- 
where to have died by that same Spirit, which here, in oppo- 
sition to the violence, is said to quicken him. Thus Ileb. 
ix. 14. Through the Eternal Spirit he offered himself. 
And even from Peter's words, and without the epithet eter- 
nal, to aid the interpretation, it is evident the Spirit, here op- 
posed to the flesh, body or animal life, is of a higher nature 
and power than the individual soul, which cannot of itself re- 
turn to reinhabit or quicken the body. 

If these points were niceties, and an over-refining in doc- 
trine, is it to be believed that the Apostles, John, Peter and 
Paul, with the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, would 
have laid so great stress on them ? But the true life of Chris- 
tians is to eye Christ in every step of his life — not only as 
their rule but as their strength : looking to him as their pattern 
both in doing and in suffering, and drawing power from him 
for going through both : being without him able for nothing. 
Take comfort, then, thou that believest ! It is he that lifts 
up the soul from the gates of death : and he hath said, I 
icill raise thee up at the last day. Thou that believest in 
him, believe him and take comfort. Yea, when thou art 
most sunk in thy sad apprehensions, and he far off to thy 
thinking, then is he nearest to raise and comfort thee : as 
sometimes it grows darkest immediately before day. 

APHORISM XVII. 

LIIGHTON \\n COLEfUDGr. 

Would any of you be cured of that common disease, the 



'216 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

fear of death ? Yet this is not the right name of the disease, 
as a mere reference to our armies and navies is sufficient to 
prove : nor can the fear of death, either as loss of life or pain 
of dying, be justly held a common disease. But would you 
be cured of the fear and fearful questionings connected with 
the'approach of death ? Look this way, and you shall find 
more than you seek. Christ, the Word that was from the 
beginning, and was made flesh and dwelt among men, died. 
And he, who dying conquered death in his own person, con- 
quered sin, and death, which is the wages of sin, for thee. 
And of this thou mayest be assured, if only thou believe in 
him, and love him. I need not add, keep his command- 
ments : since where faith and love are, obedience in its three- 
fold character, as effect, reward, and criterion, follows by 
that moral necessity which is the highest form of freedom. 
The grave is thy bed of rest, and no longer the cold bed : for 
thy Saviour has warmed it, and made it fragrant. 

If then it be health and comfort to the faithful that Christ 
descended into the grave, with especial confidence may we 
meditate on his return from thence, quickened by the Spirit : 
this being to those who are in him the certain pledge, yea, 
the effectual cause of that blessed resurrection, for which 
they themselves hope. There is that union betwixt them and 
their Redeemer, that they shall rise by the communication 
and virtue of his rising : not simply by his power — for so the 
wicked likewise to their grief shall be raised : but they by 
his life as their life. 

COMMENT. 

ON THE THREE PRECEDING APHORISMS. 

To the reader, who has consented to submit his mind to 
my temporary guidance, and who permits me to regard him 
a9 my pupil or junior fellow-student, I continue to address 
myself. Should he exist only in my imagination, let the 
bread float on the waters ! If it be the Bread of Life, it will 
not have been utterly cast away. 



ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 277 

Let us pause a moment, and review the road we have 
passed over since the transit from religious morality to spirit- 
ual religion. My first attempt was to satisfy you, that there 
is a spiritual principle in man, and to expose the sophistry of 
the arguments in support of the contrary. Our next step was 
to clear the road of all counterfeits, by showing what is not 
the Spirit, what is not spiritual religion. And this was fol- 
lowed by an attempt to establish a difference in kind between 
religious truths and the deductions of speculative science ; yet 
so as to prove, that the former are not only equally rational 
with the latter, but that they alone appeal to reason in the 
fulness and living reality of their power. This and the state 
of mind requisite for the formation of right convictions re- 
specting spiritual truths, afterwards employed Our attention. 
Having then enumerated the Articles of the Christian Faith 
peculiar to Christianity, I entered on the great object of the 
present work : namely, the removal of all valid objections to 
these articles on grounds of right reason or conscience. But 
to render this practicable, it was necessary, first, to present 
each article in its true Scriptural purity, by exposure of the 
caricatures of ministerpreters ; and this, again, could not be 
satisfactorily done till we were agreed respecting the faculty 
entitled to sit in judgment on such questions. I early fore- 
saw that my best chance (I will not say, of giving an insight 
into the surpassing worth and transcendant reasonableness 
of the Christian scheme ; but) of rendering the very question 
intelligible, depended on my success in determining the true 
nature and limits of the human understanding, and in evin- 
cing its diversity from reason. In pursuing this momentous 
subject, I was tempted in two or three instances into disqui- 
sitions, which if not beyond the comprehension, were yet un- 
suitcd to the taste, of the persons for whom the work was 
principally intended. This, however, I have separated from 
the running text, and compressed into notes. The reader 
will at worst, I hope, pass them by as a leaf or two of waste 
paper, willingly given by him to those for whom it may not 



'278 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

be paper wasted. Nevertheless, I cannot conceal that the 
subject itself supposes, on the part of the reader, a steadi- 
ness in self-questioning, a pleasure in referring to h is own 
inward experience for the facts asserted by the author, which 
can only be expected from a person who has fairly set his 
heart on arriving at clear and fixed conclusions in matters of 
faith. But where this interest is felt, nothing more than a 
common capacity, with the ordinary advantages of education, 
is required for the complete comprehension both of the argu- 
ment and the result. Let but one thoughtful hour be devo- 
ted to the pages 157 — 177. In all that follows, the reader 
will find no difficulty in understanding the author's meaning, 
whatever he may have in adopting it. 

The two great moments of the Christian Religion are, Ori- 
ginal Sin and Redemption ; that the ground, this the super- 
structure of our faith. The former I have exhibited, first, ac- 
cording to the scheme of the Westminster Divines and the 
Synod of Dort ; then, according to the* scheme of a contem- 



* To escape the consequences of this scheme, some Arminian divines 
have asserted that the penalty inflicted on Adam, and continued in his pos- 
terity, was simply the loss of immortality — death as the utter extinction of 
personal being : immortality being regarded by them (and not, I think 
without good reason) as a supernatural attribute, and its loss therefore in- 
volved in the forfeiture of supernatural graces. This theory has its golden 
side : and, as a private opinion, is said to have the countenance of more than 
one dignitary of our Church, whose general orthodoxy is beyond impeach- 
ment. For here the penalty resolves itself into the consequence, and this 
the natural and naturally inevitable consequc-nce of Adam's crime. For 
Adam, indeed, it was a positive punishment : a punishment of his guilt, the 
justice of which who could have dared arraign ? While for the o .'spring of 
Adam it was simply a not super-adding to their nature the privilege by 
which the original man was contradistinguished from the brute creation — a 
mere negation, of which they had no more right to complain than any other 
species of animals. God in this view appears only in his attribute of mer- 
cy, as averting by supernatural interposition a consequence naturally ine- 
vitable. This is the golden side of the theory. But if we approach to it 
from the opposite direction, it first excites a just scruple, from the counte- 
nance it seems to give to the doctrine of Materialism. The supporters of 
this scheme do not, I presume, contend that Adam's offspring would not 



ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 279 

porary Arminian divine ; and lastly, in contrast with both 
schemes, I have placed what I firmly believe to be the Scrip- 
tural sense of this article, and vindicated its entire conformity 
with reason and experience. I now proceed to the other 
momentous article — from the necessitating occasion of the 
Christian dispensation to Christianity itself. For Christianity 
and Redemption are equivalent terms. And here my com- 
ment will be comprised in a few sentences : for I confine my 
views to the one object of clearing this awful mystery from 
those too current misrepresentations of its nature and import 
that have laid it open to scruples and objections, not to such 

have been born men, but have formed cies of beasts ! And if not, 

the notion of a rational and self-conscious soul, perishing utterly with the 
dissolution of the organized body, > require, nay, almost involves, 

the opinion that the soul is a quality or accident of the body — a mere har- 
mony resulting from organization. 

But let this pass unquestioned. er else the descendants of Adam 

might have been without the in: of Christ, yet (this intercession 

having been effectually made) they are wed with souls that are not 

extinguished together with the material body. Now unless these divines 
teach likewise the Romish figment of Purgatory, and to an extent in which 
the Church of Home herself would denounce the doctrine as an impious 

heresy: unless they hold, t] ihment temporary and remedial is the 

worst evil that the impenitent have to apprehend in a future state ; and 
that the spiritual death declared and foretold by Christ, the death eternal 
zchcrc the worm never flics, is neither death nor eternal, but a certain quan- 
tum of suffering in a state of faith, hope, and progressive amendment — un. 
less they go these lengths ('and the divines here intended are orthodox 
Churchmen, men who would not knowingly advance even a step on the 
road towards them) — then I fear that any advantage their theory might pos- 
sess over the Calvinistic scheme in the article of Original Sin, would be 
dearly purchased by increased difficulties, and an ultra-Calvinistic narrow. 
ness in the article of Redemption. I at learst find it impossible, with my 
present human feelings, to imagine otherwise than that even in heaven 
it would be a fearful thing to know, that in order to my elevation to a lot 
infinitely more desirable than by nature it would have been, the lot of so 
vast a multitude had been rendered infinitely more calamitous ; and that 
my felicity had been purchased by the everlasting misery of the majority of 
my feilow-men, who, if no redemption had been provided, after inheriting 
the pains and pleasures of earthly existence during the numbered hours, 
and the few and evil — evil yet few— days of the years oi their mortal life, 
would have fallen asleep to wake no more, — would have sunk into the 



^60 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

as shoot forth from an unbelieving heart — (against these a 
sick bed will be a more effectual antidote than all the argu- 
ment in the world) — but to such scruples as have their birth- 
place in the reason and moral sense. Not that it is a mys- 
tery — not that itpasseth all understanding ; — if the doctrine 
be more than a hyperbolical phrase, it must do so ; — but that 
it is at variance with the law revealed in the conscience, that 
it contradicts our moral instincts a;:d intuitions — this is the 
difficulty, which alone is worthy of an answer. And what 
better way is there of correcting the misconceptions than by 
laying open the source and occasion of them ? What surer 
way of removing the scruples and prejudices, to which these 
misconceptions have given rise, than by propounding tho 
mystery itself — namely, the redemptive act, as the transcen- 
dent cause of salvation — in the express and definite words in 
which it was enunciated by the Redeemer himself ? 

But here, in addition to the three Aphorisms preceding, I 
interpose a view of redemption as appropriated by faith, coin- 
cident with Leighton's, though for the greater part expressed 
in my own words. This I propose as the right view. Then 
follow a few sentences transcribed from Field (an excellent 
divine of the reign of James I., of whose work on the Church,* 
it would be difficult to speak too highly,) containing the 
questions to be solved, and which is numbered as an Apho- 
rism, rather to preserve the uniformity of appearance, than 

dreamless sleep of the grave, and have been as the murmur and the plaint, 
and the exulting swell and the sharp scream, which the unequal gust of yes- 
terday snatched from the strings of a wind-harp. 

In another place I have ventured to question the spirit and tendency of 
Taylor's Work on Repentance. t But I ought to have added, that to dis- 
cover and keep the true medium in expounding and applying the efficacy of 
Christ's Cross and Passion is beyond comparison the most difficult and de- 
licate point of practical divinity — and that which especially needs a gui- 
dance from above. 

* See Literary Remains, vol. iii. pp. 57 — 92. Ed. 

t See also Literary Regains, vol. iii. pp, 293 — 325. Ed. 



ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 281 

as being strictly such. Then follows the comment : as part 
and commencement of which the reader will consider the 
two paragraphs of pp. 203 — 204, written for this purpose, and 
in the foresight of the present inquiry : and I entreat him 
therefore to begin the comment by re-perusing these* 

APHORISM XVIII, 

Stedfast by faith. This is absolutely necessary for resist 
tance to the evil principle. There is no standing out with- 
out some firm ground to stand on : and this faith alone sup- 
plies. By faith in the love of Christ the power of God be<- 
comes ours. When the soul is beleaguered by enemies, 
weakness on the walls, treachery at the gates, and corruption 
in the citadel, then by faith she says — Lamb of God slain from 
the foundation of the world ! Thou art my strength ! I look 
to thee for deliverance ! And thus she overcomes. The 
pollution (miasma) of sin is precipitated by his blood, the 
power of sin is conquered by his Spirit. The Apostle says 
not — stedfast by your own resolutions and purposes ; but — « 
stedfast by faith. Nor yet stedfast in your will, but sted- 
fast in the faith. We are not to be looking to, or brooding 
over ourselves, either for accusation or for confidence, or 
(by a deep yet too frequent self-delusion) to obtain the lat- 
ter by making a merit to ourselves of the former. But we 
are to look to Christ and him crucified. The law that is 
very nigh to thee, even in thy heart : the law that condemn- 
eth and hath no promise ; that stoppeth the guilty past in 
its swift flight, and maketh it disown its name ; the law will 
accuse thee enough. Linger not in the justice-court listen- 
ing to thy indictment. Loiter not in waiting to hear the sen- 
tence. No, anticipate the verdict. Appeal to Cassar. Haste 
to the king for a pardon. Struggle thitherward, though in 
fetters : and cry aloud, and collect the whole remaining 
strength of thy will in the outcry — / believe ; Lord, help my 
unbelief! Disclaim all right of property in thy fetters. Say 
that they belong: to thr old man, and that thou dost but carry 
3& 



282 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

them to the grave, to be buried with their owner ! Fix thy 
thought on what Christ did, what Christ suffered, what 
Christ is — as if thou wouldst fill the hollowness of thy soul 
with Christ. If he emptied himself of glory to become sin 
for thy salvation, must not thou be emptied of thy sinful self 
to become righteousness in and through his agony and the 
effective merits of his cross ?* By what other means, in 
what other form, is it possible for thee to stand in the pre- 
sence of the Holy One ? With what mind wouldst thou 



* God manifested in the flesh is eternity in the form of time. But eter- 
nity in relation to time is as the absolute to the conditional, or the real to 
the apparent, and redemption must partake of both ; — always perfected, 
for it is a Fiat of the Eternal ; — continuous, for it is a process in relation to 
man ; the former the alone objectively, and therefore universally, true. 
That redemption is an opvs perfection, a finished work, the claim to which 
is conferred in Baptism : that a Christian cannot speak or think as if hia 
redemption by the blood, and hisjustification by the righteousness of Christ 
alone, were future or contingent events, but must both say and think, I 
have been redeemed, I am justified ; lastly, that for as many as are received 
into his Church by Baptism, Christ has condemned sin in the flesh, has 
made it dead in law, that is, no longer imputable as guilt, has destroyed 
the objective reality of sin : — these are truths, which all the Reformed 
Churches, Swedish, Danish, Evangelical, (or Lutheran,) the Reformed, (the 
Calvinistic in mid-Germany, France, and Geneva, so called,) lastly, the 
Church of England, and the Church of Scotland — nay, the best and most 
learned divines of the Roman Catholic Church have united in upholding 
as most certain and necessary articles of faith, and the effectual preaching 
of which Luther declares to be the appropriate criterion, st.antis vcl cudentis 
Ecclesice. The Church is standing or falling, according as this doctrine is 
supported, or overlooked, or countervened. Nor has the contrary doctrine, 
according to which the baptized are yet each individually, to be called, con- 
verted, and chosen, with all the corollaries from this assumption, the 
watching for signs and sensible assurances, the frames, and the states, and 
the feelings, and the sudden conversions, the contagious fever-boils of the 
(most unfitly, so called) Evangelicals, and Arminian Methodists of the 
day, been in any age taught or countenanced by any known and accredited 
Christian Church, or by any body and succession of learned divines. On 
the other hand, it has rarely happened that the Church has not been troub- 
led by Pharisaic and fanatical individuals, who have sought, by working on 
the fears and feelings of the weak and unstead}% that celebrity which they 
could not obtain by learning and orthodoxy : and alas ! so subtle is the poi- 
ton, and so malignant in its operation, that it is almost hopeless to attempt 



SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 283 

come before God, if not with the mind of Him, in whom 
alone God loveth the world ? Witli good advice, perhaps, 
and a little assistance, thou wouldst rather cleanse and patch 
up a mind of thy own, and offer it as thy admission-right, 
thy qualification, to Him who charged his angels with folly ! 
Oh ! take counsel of thy reason. It will show thee how im- 
possible it is t/iat even a world should merit the love of etern- 
al wisdom and all sufficing beatitude, otherwise than as it is 
contained in that all-perfect Idea, in which the supreme Spir- 
it contemplateth itself and the plenitude of its infinity — the 
Only-Begotten before all ages, the beloved Son, in whom the 
Father is indeed well pleased ! 



the cure of any person, once infected, more particularly when, as most often 
happens, the patient is a woman. Nor does Luther, in his numerous and 
admirable discourses on this point, conceal or palliate the difficulties which 
the carnal mind, that works under many and different disguises, throws in 
the way to prevent the laying Jinn held of the truth. One most mischiev- 
ous and very popular mis-belief must be cleared away in the first instance 
—the presumption, I mean, that whatever is not quite simple, and what any 
plain body can understand at the first hearing, cannot be of necessary be- 
lief, or among the fundamental articles or essentials of Christian faith. A 
docile, child-like mind, a deference to the authority of the Churches, a pre- 
sumption of the truth of doctrines that have been received and taught as 
true by the whole Church in all times ; reliance on the positive declarations 
•of the Apostle — in short, all the convictions of the truth of a doctrine that 
are previous to a perfect insight into its truth, because these convictions, 
with the affections and dispositions accompanying them, are the very 
.means and conditions of attaining to that insight — and study of, and quiet 
meditation on, them with a gradual growth of spiritual knowledge and 
earnest prayer for its increase ; all these, to each and all of which the young 
Christian is so repeatedly and fervently exhorted by St. Paul, arc to be su- 
perseded, because, forsooth, truths needful for all men, must be quite simple 
and easy, and adapted to the capacity of all, even of the plainest and dullest 
understanding ! What cannot be poured all at once on a man, can only 
be supererogatory drops from the emptied shower-bath of religious instruc- 
tion ! But surely, the more rational inference would be, that the faith, 
which is to gave the whole man, must have its roots and justifying grounds 
in the very depths of our being. And he who can read the writings of the 
Apostles, John and Paul, without finding in almost every page a confirma- 
tion of this, mist have looked at them, as at the sun in an eclipse, through 
vilackened glasses 



234 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

And as the mind, so the body with which it is to be cloth- 
ed ; as the indweller, so the house in which it is to be the 
abiding-place.* There is but one wedding-garment, in 
which we can sit down at the marriage-feast of Heaven : 
and that is the bridegroom's own gift, when he gave himself 
for us, that we might live in him and he in us. There is but 
one robe of righteousness, even the spiritual body, formed by 
the assimilative power of faith, for whoever eateth the flesh 
of the Son of Man, and drinketh his blood. Did Christ 
come from Heaven, did the Son of God leave the glory 



* St. Paul blends both forms of expression, and asserts the same doctrine 
when speaking of the celestial body provided for the new man in the spiritu- 
al flesh and blood, (that is, the informing power and vivific life of the in- 
carnate Word : for the blood is the life, and the flesh the power) — when 
speaking, 1 say, of this celestial body, as a house not made with hands, eternal 
in the heavens, yet brought down to us, made appropriable by faith, and 
ours — he adds, for i?i this earthly house (that is, this mortal life, as the in- 
ward principle or energy of our tabernacle, or outward and sensible body) 
we groan, tar firstly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from 
heaven : not that we would be unclothed^ but clothed upon, that mortality might 
be swal'oiccd up of life, 2 Cor. v. 1 — 4. 

The four last words of the first verse (eternal in the heavens) compared 
with the conclusion of v. 2, (which is from heaven) present a coincidence 
with John in. 13, " And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that 
came down from heaven, even the Son of Man, which is in heaven." 
[Would not the coincidence be more apparent, if the words of John had 
been rendered word for word, even to a disregard of the English idiom, and 
with what would be servile and superstitious fidelity in the translation of a 
common classic : lean see no reason why the adit is, so frequent in St. 
John, should not be rendered literally, no one ; and there may be a reason 
why it should. I have some doubt likewise respecting the omission of the 
definite articles rbv, toiJ,t<3 — and a greater as to the 6 w'r, both in this place 
and in John i. 18, being adequately rendered by our which is. What sense 
some of the Greek Fathers attached to, or inferred from, St. Paul's in the 
heavens, the theological student (and to theologians is this note principally 
addressed) may find in Waterland's Letters to a Country Clergyman — a 
divine, whose judgment and strong sound sense are as unquestionable as 
his learning and orthodoxy. A clergyman, in full orders, who has never 
read the works of Bull and Waterland, has a duty yet to perform.] 

Let it not be objected, that, forgetful of my own professed aversion to 
allegorical interpretations, I have, in this note, fallen into the fond humour 
of the mystic divines, and allegorizers of Holy Writ. There is, believe me 



ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. *285 

which he had with his Father before the world began, only 
to shew us a way to life, to teach truths, to tell us of a resur- 
rection ? Or saith he not, i" am the way — J am the truth — 
I am the resurrection and the life? 

APHORISM XIX. 



The Romanists teach that sins committed after Baptism 
(that is, for the immense majority of Christians having Chris- 
tian parents, all their sins from the cradle to the grave) are 
not so remitted for Christ's sake, but that we must suffer 
that extremity of punishment which they deserve: and 
therefore either we must afflict ourselves in such sort and 



ft wide difference between symbolical and allegorical. If I say that the 
flesh and blood (corpus noumenon) of the Incarnate Word are power and 
life, I say likewise that this mysterious power and life are verily and actu- 
ally the flesh and blood of Christ. They are the allegorizers w ho turn the 
sixth chapter of the Gospel according to St. John, the hard saying, — who 
can hear it? — after which time many of Christ's disciples, who had been 
eye-witnesscss of his mighty miracles, who had heard the sublime morality 
of his Sermon on the Mount, had glorified God for the wisdom which they 
had heard, and had been prepared to acknowledge, This is indeed thi Christ, 
— went back and walked no more with him ! — the hard sayings, which even 
the Twelve were not yet competent to understand farther than that they 
were to be spiritually understood ; and which the chief of the Apostles was. 
content to receive with an implicit and anticipative faith ! — they, I repeat 
are the allegorizers who moralize these hard sayings, these high words of 
mystery, into a hyperbolical metaphor per catachresin, which only means a 
belief of the doctrine which Paul believed, an obedience to the law, re- 
specting which Paul was blameless, before the voice called him on the road 
to Damascus ! What every parent, every humane preceptor, would do 
when a child had misunderstood a metaphor or apologue in a literal sense, 
we all know. But the meek and merciful Jesus suffered many of his dis- 
ciples to fall off from eternal life, when, to restrain them, he had only to 
say, — Oye simple-ones ! why arc ye offended ? My words, indeed, sound 
strange ; but I mean no more than what you have often and often heard 
from me before, with delight and entire acquiescence! — Credo! Judceus ■' 
Jfon ego. It is sufficient for me to know that I have used the language of 
Paul and John, as it was understood and interpreted by Justin Martyr, Ter- 
tullian, Irenseus, and (if he does not err) by the whole Christian Church 
then existing. 



286 AIDS TO INFLECTION. 

degree of extremity as may answer the demerit of our sins, 
or be punished by God, here or in the world to come, in such 
degree and sort that his justice may be satisfied. [As the 
encysted venom, or poison-bag, beneath the adder's fang, so 
does this doctrine lie beneath the tremendous power of the 
Romish Hierarchy. The demoralizing influence of this dog- 
ma, and that it curdled the very life-blood in the veins of 
Christendom, it was given to Luther, beyond all men since 
Paul, to see, feel, and promulgate. And yet in his large 
Treatise on Repentance, how near to the spirit of this doc- 
trine — even to the very walls and gates of Babylon — was 
Jeremy Taylor driven, in recoiling from the fanatical ex- 
tremes of the opposite error !] But they that are orthodox, 
teach that it is injustice to require the paying of one debt 
twice. * * * It is no less absurd to say, as the Papists do, 
that our satisfaction is required as a condition, without which 
Christ's satisfaction is not applicable unto us, than to say, 
Peter hath paid the debt of John, and he to whom it was 
due accepteth of the payment on the condition that John 
pay it himself also. * * * The satisfaction of Christ is com- 
municated and applied unto us without suffering the punish- 
ment that sin deserveth, [and essentially involveth,] upon 
the condition of our faith and repentance. [To which I 
would add ; Without faith there is no power of repentance : 
without a commencing repentance no power to faith : and 
that it is in the power of the will either to repent or to have 
faith in the Gospel sense of the words, is itself a consequence 
of the redemption of mankind, a free gift of the Redeemer : 
the guilt of its rejection, the refusing to avail ourselves of the 
power, being all that we can consider as exclusively attribu- 
table to our own act.] 

COM3IENT. 
(CONTAINING AN APPLICATION OF THE P1UNCIPLE5 LAID 

down in p. 203—204.) 
Forgiveness of sin, the abolition of guilt, though the re- 



ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 287 

clemptivc power of Christ's love, and of his perfect obedience 
during his voluntary assumption of humanity, expressed, on 
account of the resemblance of the consequences in both ca- 
ses, by the payment of a debt for another, which debt the 
payer had not himself incurred. Now the impropriation of 
this metaphor — (that is, the taking it literally) — by transfer- 
ring the sameness from the consequents to the antecedents, 
or inferring the identity of the causes from a resemblance in 
the effects — this is the point on which I am at issue : and 
the view or scheme of redemption grounded on this confusion 
I believe to be altogether un-Scriptural. 

Indeed, I know not in what other instance I could better 
exemplify the species of sophistry noticed in p. 249, as the 
Aristotelean ^e-ajSaijic sis ciXXo yhos, ore landestine passage over 
into a diverse kind. The purpose of a metaphor is to illus- 
trate a something less known by a partial identification of it 
by some other thing better understood, or at least more fa- 
miliar. Now the article of Redemption may be considered 
in a twofold relation — in relation to the antecedent, that is, 
the Redeemer's act as the efficient cause and condition of re- 
demption ; and in relation to the consequent, that is, the ef- 
fects in and for the redeemed. Now it is the latter relation, 
in which the subject is treated of, set forth, expanded, and 
enforced by St. Paul. The mysterious act, the operative 
cause, is transcendent. Factum est : and beyond the in- 
formation contained in the enunciation of the fact, it can be 
characterized only by the consequences. It is the conse- 
quences of the act of Redemption, which the zealous Apos- 
tle would bring home to the minds and effections both of 
Jews and Gentiles. Now the Apostle's opponents and gain- 
sayers were principally of the former class. They were 
Jews : not only Jews unconverted, but such as had partially 
received the Gospel, and who sheltering their national preju- 
dices under the pretended authority of Christ's original Apos- 
tles and the Church in Jerusalem, set themselves up against 
Paul as followers of Cephas. Add too, that Paul himself was 



288 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

a Hebrew of the Hebrews ; intimately versed in the Jews' 
religion above many his equals in his own nation and above 
measure zealous of the traditions of his fathers. It might 
therefore, have been anticipated, that his reasoning would re- 
ceive its outward forms and language, that it would take its 
predominant colors, from his own past, and his opponents' 
present, habits of thinking ; and that his figures, images, 
analogies, and references would be taken preferably from ob- 
jects, opinions, events, and ritual observances ever uppermost 
in the imaginations of his own countrymen. And such we 
find them ; — yet so judiciously selected, that the prominent 
forms, the figures of most frequent recurrence, are drawn from 
points of belief and practice, forms, laws, rites and customs, 
which then prevailed through the whole Roman world, and 
were common to Jew and Gentile. 

Now it would be difficult if not impossible to select points 
better suited to this purpose, as being equally familiar to all, 
and yet having a special interest for the Jewish converts, than 
those are from which the learned Apostle has drawn the four 
principal metaphors, by which he illustrates the blessed con- 
sequences of Christ's redemption of mankind. These are : 
I. Sin offerings, sacrificial expiation. 2. Reconciliation, 
atonement, xa-aWuyr}.* 3. Ransom from slavery, redemp- 



* This word occurs but once in the New Testament, Rom. v. 11, the 
marginal rendering being reconciliation. The personal noun, xaTccAZaxTijs, 
is still in use with the modern Greeks for a money-changer, or one who 
takes the debased currency, so general in countries under a despotic or oth- 
er dishonest government in exchange for sterling coin or bullion ; the pur 
chaser paying the catallage, that is, the difference. In the elder Greek 
writers, the verb means to exchange for an opposite, as, xaraMuaotTo rijv 
eX&Qqv rot? aruaioiTan; — He exchanged within himself enmity for friendship, 
(that is, he reconciled himself,) with his party; — or, as we say, made it up 
with them, an idiom which (with whatever loss of dignity) gives the 
exact force of the word. He made up the difference. The Hebrew word, 
of very frequent occurrence in the Pentateuch, which we render by the sub- 
stantive atonement, has its radical or visual image in copher, pitch. Gen. 
vi. 14. Thou skalt pitch it within and without with pitch ; — hence to unite, 
to fill up a breach or leak, the word expressing both the act, namely, the 



ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 



289 



tion, the lniying hack again, or b iing bought back. 1. Satis- 
faction of a creditor's claims by a payment of the debt. Tq 

one or other of these four heads all the numerous forms and 
exponents of Christ's mediation in St. Paul's writings may 

be referred. And the very number and variety of the words 
or periphrases used by him to express one and the same 
thing, furnish the strongest presumptive proof that ail alike 
were used metaphorically. [In the following notation, let 
the small letters represent the effects or consequences, and 
the capitals the efficient causes or antecedents. Whether by 
causes we mean acts or agents, is indifferent. Now let X 
signify a transcendent, that is, a cause, beyond our compre- 
hension, and not within the sphere of sensible experience; 
and on the other hand, let A, B, C, and D, represent each 
some one known and familiar cause, in reference to some 
single and characteristic effect : namely, A in reference tok, 
B to 1, C to m, and D to n. Then I say X + k ; 1 m n is in dif- 
ferent places expressed by A + k ; B_|_l ; C + m ; D-f-n. — 
And these I should call metaphorical exponents of X.] 

Now John, the beloved disciple, who leaned on the Lord's 
bosom, the Evangelist Kara ntvsviiu, that is, according to the 
spirit, the inner and substantial truth of the Christian Creed 
— John, recording the Redeemer's own words, enunciates 

bringing together what had boon previously separated, and the r. cans, or 
material, by which the re-union is effected, as in our English verbs, to 
caulk, to solder, to jjo i/ <>r pay (from poix, pitch,) and the french suiter- — 
Thence, metaphorically, expiation, the piacula having the same root, and 
being grounded on another prop rums and resins, the suppo- 

sed cleansing power.-: of their fumigation. Numb, viii. 21 •. made atone- 
meat for tin: Levites l<> cleanse than. — Lasily (or if wo were to helieve the 
Hebrew Lexicons, properly and most frequently) it means ransom. Butif 
byproper, the interpreters mean primary and radical, the assertion does nor 
need a confutation : all radicals belonging ;-. one or other of three classes, 
1. Interjections or sounds expressing sensations or passions. 2. Imita- 
tions of sounds) as splash, roar, whiz, &c. 3. and principally, visual ima- 
ges, objects of sight. But as !•> frequency, in all the numerous (fifty, I be- 
lieve,) instances of the word in the Old Testament^ I have not found one 
in which it. can, or at least need, he rendered by ransom : though beyond all 
doubt ransom is used in the Epistle to Ti an equivalent term, 

37 



290 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

the fact itself, to the full extent in which it is enunciable for 
the human mind, simply and without any metaphor, by iden- 
tifying it in kind with a fact of hourly occurrence — expres- 
sing it, I say, by a familiar fact the same in kind with that 
intended, though of afar lower dignity ; — by a fact of every 
man's experience, known to all, yet not better understood 
than the fact described by it. In the redeemed it is a re- 
generation, a birth, a spiritual seed impregnated and evolved, 
the germinal principle of a higher and enduring life, of a spir- 
itual life — that is. a life the actuality of which is not depend- 
ent on the material body, or limited by the circumstances and 
processes indispensable to its organization and subsistence. 
Briefly, it is the differential of immortality, of which the as- 
similative power of faith and love is the integrant, and the 
life in Christ the integration. 

But even this would be an imperfect statement, if we omit- 
ted the awful truth, that beside that dissolution of our earth- 
ly tabernacle which we call death, there is another death, 
not the mere negation of life, but its positive opposite. Andas 
there is a mystery of life, and an assimilation to the principle 
of life, even to him who is the Life ; so is there a mystery of 
death, and an assimilation to the principle of evil ; a fructi- 
fying - of the corrupt seed, of which death is the germination. 
Thus the regeneration to spiritual life is at the same time a 
redemption from the spiritual death. 

Respecting the redemptive act itself, and the divine agent, 
we know from revelation that he was made a quickening 
(^wotfoiouv, life-making) Spirit : and that in order to this it was 
necessary that God should be manifested in the flesh ; that 
the Eternal Word, through whom and by whom the world 
(xofffjt-oc:, the order, beauty, and sustaining law of visible na- 
tures) was and is, should be made flesh, assume our humani- 
ty personally, fulfil all righteousness, and so suffer and so die 
for us, as in dying to conquer death for as many as should 
receive him. More than this, the mode, the possibility, we 
are not competent to know. It is. as hath been already ob- 



U.N SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 291 

served concerning the primal act of apostasy, a mystery by 
the necessity of the subject — a mystery, which at all events it 
will be time enough for us to seek unci expect to understand, 
when we understand the mystery of our natural life, and its 
conjunction with mind and will and personal identity. Even 
the truths that are given to us to know, we can know only 
through faith in the spirit. They are spiritual things which 
must be spiritually discerned. Such, however, being the 
means and the effects of our redemption, well might the fer- 
vent Apostle associate it with whatever was eminently dear 
and precious to erring and afilieted mortals, and (where no 
expression could be commensurate, no single title be other 
than imperfect) seek from similitude of effect to describe the 
superlative boon, by successively transferring to it. as by a 
superior claim, the name of each several act and ordinance, 
habitually connected in the minds of all his hearers with feel- 
ings of joy, confidence, and gratitude. 

Do you rejoice when the atonement made by the priest has 
removed the civil stain from your name, restored you to your 
privileges as a son of Abraham, and replaced you in the re- 
spect of your brethren ? — Here is an atonement which takes 
away a deeper and worse stain, an eating canker-spot in the 
very heart of your personal being. This, to as many as re- 
ceive it, gives the privilege to become sons of God (John i. 
12) ; this will admit you to the society of angels, and insure 
to you the rights of brotherhood with spirits made perfect. — 
(Heb. xii. 22.) Here is a sacrifice, a sin-offering for the 
whole world : and a High Priest, who is indeed a Mediator ; 
who, not in type or shadow, but in very truth, and in his own 
right, stands in the place of Man to God, and God to Man ; 
and who receives as a Judge what he offered as an Advo- 
cate. 

Would you be grateful to one who had ransomed you from 
slavery under a bitter foe, or who brought you out of captivi- 
ty ? Here is redemption from a far direr slavery, the slavery 



292 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

of sin unto death ; and he who gave himself for the ransom, 
has taken captivity captive. 

Had you by your own fault, alienated yourself from your 
best, your only sure friend ; — had you, like a prodigal, cast 
yourself out of your Father's house ; — would you not love the 
good Samaritan, who should reconcile you to your friend 1 
Would you not prize above all price the intercession, which 
had brought you back from husks, and the tending of swine, 
and restored you to your father's arms, and seated you at 
your father's table ? 

Had you involved yourself in a heavy debt for certain gew- 
gaws, for high seasoned meats, and intoxicating drinks, and 
glistering apparel, and in default of payment had made your- 
self over as bondsman to a hard creditor, who, it was fore- 
known, would enforce the bond of judgment to the last tit- 
tle ; — with what emotions would you not receive the glad 
tidings that a stranger, or a friend whom in the days of your 
wantonness you had neglected and reviled, had paid the debt 
for you, had made satisfaction to your creditor ? But yon 
have incurred a debt of death to the evil nature ; you have 
sold yourself over to sin ; and, relatively to you, and to all 
your means and resources, the seal on the bond is the seal of 
necessity. Its stamp is the nature of evil. But the stranger 
has appeared, the forgiving friend lias come, even the Son of 
God from heaven : and to as many as have faith in his name, 
J sa y — the debt is paid for you ; — the satisfaction has been 
made. 

Now, to simplify the argument, and at the same time to 
bring the question to a test, we will confine our attention to 
the figure last mentioned, namely, the satisfaction of a debt. 
Passing by our modern Alogi, who find nothing but meta- 
phors in either Apostle, let us suppose for a moment, with 
certain divines, that our Lord's words, recorded by John, and 
which in all places repeat and assert the same analogy, are 
to be regarded as metaphorical ; and that it is the varied ex- 
pressions of St. Paul that are to be literally interpreted : — '- 



ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. ^93 

for example, that sin is, or involves;, an infinite debt, (in the 
proper and law-court sense of the word, debt) — a debt ow- 
ing by us to the vindictive justice of God the Father, which 
can only be liquidated by the everlasting misery of Adam and 
all his posterity, or by a sum of suffering equal to this. Like- 
wise, that God the Father, by his absolute decree, or (as 
some divines teach) through the necessity of his unchangea- 
ble justice, had determined to exact the full sum ; which 
must, therefore be paid either by ourselves or by some other 
in our name and behalf. But besides the debt which all 
mankind contracted in and through Adam, as a homo publi- 
cists, even as a nation is bound by the acts of its head or its 
plenipotentiary, every man (say these divines) is an insolvent 
debtor on his own score. In this fearful predicament the 
Son of God took compassion on mankind, and resolved to 
pay the debt for us, and to satisfy the divine justice by a per- 
fect equivalent. Accordingly, by a strange yet strict conse- 
quence, it has been holden by more than one of these divines, 
that the agonies suffered by Christ were equal in amount to 
the sum total of the torments of all mankind here and here- 
after, or to the infinite debt, which in an endless succession 
of instalments we should have been paying to the divine jus- 
tice, had it not been paid in full by the Son of God incar- 
nate ! 

It is easy to say — " O, but I do not hold this, or we do not 
make this an article of our belief !" The true question is : 
" Do you take any part of it ; and can you reject the rest 
without being inconsequent?" Are debt, satisfaction, pay- 
ment in full, creditor's rights, and the like, nomina propria. 
by which the very nature of Redemption and its occasion is 
expressed ; — or are they, with several others, figures of Speech 
for the purpose of illustrating the nature and extent of the 
consequences and effects of the redemptive act, and tb ex- 
cite in the receivers a due sense of the magnitude and 
manifold operation of the boon, and of the love and gratitude 
due to the Redeemer ? If still you reply, the former : then, 



"2i)i AIDS TO REELECTION. 

as your whole theory is grounded on a notion of justice, I ask 
you — Is this justice a moral attribute? But morality com- 
mences with, and begins in, the sacred distinction between 
thing and person. On this distinction all law, human and 
divine, is grounded : consequently, the law of justice. If you 
attach any meaning to the term justice, as applied to God, it 
must be the same to which you refer when you affirm or de- 
ny it of any other personal agent — save only, that in its attri- 
bution to God, you speak of it as unmixed and perfect. For 
if not, what do you mean ? And why do you call it by the 
same name? I may, therefore, with all right and reason, 
put the case as between man and man. For should it be 
found irreconcilable with the justice which the light of reason, 
made law in the conscience, dictates to man, how much more 
must it be incongruous with the all -perfect justice of God ! 
Whatever case I should imagine would be felt by the reader 
as below the dignity of the subject, and in some measure jar- 
ring with his feelings ; and in other respects the more famil- 
iar the case, the better suited to the present purpose. 

A sum of £1000 is owing from James to Peter, for which 
James has given a bond. He is insolvent, and the bond is 
on the point of being put in suit against him, to James's utter 
ruin. At this moment Matthew steps in, pays Peter the 
thousand pounds, and discharges the bond. In this case, no 
man would hesitate to admit, that a complete satisfaction had 
been made to Peter. Matthew's £1000 is a perfect equiva- 
lent for the sum which James was bound to have paid, and 
which Peter had lent. It is the same thing : and this is al- 
together a question of things. Now instead of James's being 
indebted to Peter for a sum of money, which (he having be- 
come insolvent) Matthew pays for him, let me put the case, 
that James had been guilty of the basest and most hard-hear- 
ted ingratitude to a most worthy and affectionate mother, 
who had not only performed all the duties and tender offices 
of a mother, but whose whole heart was bound up in this her 
onlv child — who had foregone all the pleasures and amuse- 



ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 295 

meats, of life in watching over h'<* sickly childhood, had sac- 
rificed her health and the far greater part of her resources to 
rescue him from the consequences of his follies and excesses 
during his youth, and early manhood ; and to procure for 
him the means of his present rank and affluence — all which 
he had repaid by neglect, desertion, and open profligacy. 
Here the mother stands in the relation of tiie creditor : and 
here too, I will suppose the same generous friend to interfere, 
and to perform with the greatest tenderness and constancy 
all those duties of a grateful and affectionate son, which 
James ought to have performed. Will this satisfy the moth- 
er's claims on James, or entitle him to her esteem, approba- 
tion, and blessing ? Or what if Matthew, the vicarious son, 
should at length address her in words to this purpose : — 
" Now, I trust, you are appeased, and will be henceforward 
reconciled to James. I have satisfied all your claims on him. 
I have paid his debt in full : and you are too just to require 
the same debt to be paid twice over. You will therefore re- 
gard him with the same complacency, and receive him into 
your presence with the same love, as if there had been no 
difference between him and you. For I have made it up." 
What other reply could the swelling heart of the mother dic- 
tate than this : " O misery ! and is it possible that you are 
in league with my unnatural child to insult me ? Must not 
the very necessity of your abandonment of your proper sphere, 
form an additional evidence, of his guilt ? Must not the 
sense of your goodness teach me more fully to comprehend, 
more vividly to feel, the evil in him ? Must not the contrast 
of your merits, magnify his demerit in his mother's eye, and 
at once recall and embitter the conviction of the canker-worm 
in his soul ?" 

If indeed by the force of Matthew's example, by persua- 
sion, or by additional and more mysterious influences, or by 
an inward co-agency, compatible with the existence of a per- 
sonal will, James should be led to repent ; if through admi- 
ration and love of this great goodness gradually assimilating 



296 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

his mind to the mind of his benefactor, he should in his own 
person become a grateful and dutiful child — then doubtless 
the mother would be wholly satisfied ! But then the case is 
no longer a question of things, or a matter of debt payable by 
another. Nevertheless, the effect, — and the reader will re- 
member, that it is the effects and consequences of Christ's 
mediation, on which St. Paul is dilating — the effect to James 
is similar in both cases, that is, in the case of James, the debt- 
or, and of James the undutiful son. In both cases, James is 
liberated from a grievous burthen : and in both cases, he has 
to attribute his liberation to the act and free grace of another. 
The only difference is, that in the former case (namely, the 
payment of the debt) the beneficial act is, singly and without 
requiring any re-action or co-agency on the part of James, 
the efficient cause of his liberation ; while in the latter case 
(namely, that of Redemption) the beneficial act is the first, 
the indispensable condition, and then, the co-efficient. 

The professional student of theology will, perhaps, under- 
stand the different positions asserted in the preceding argu- 
ment more readily if they are presented synoptically, that is, 
brought at once within his view, in the form of answers to 
four questions, comprising the constituent parts of the Scrip- 
tural doctrine of Redemption. And I trust that my lay rea- 
ders of both sexes will not allow themselves to be scared from 
the perusal of the following short catechism, by half a dozen 
Latin words, or rather words with Latin endings, that trans- 
late themselves into English, when I dare assure them, that 
they will encounter no other obstacle to their full and easy 
comprehension of the contents. 



UN SPIRIT! AL RELIGION. '^'J7 

Synopsis of the constituent points in the doctrine of Re- 
demption, in/our questions, with correspondent answers. 

Questions. 

( 1 . A gens causator 1 

2. Actus causativus 1 

3. Effectum causatum ? 

4. Consequentia ab ejfecto 1 

Answers. 



Who (or What) is the 



I. The agent and personal cause of the Redemption of 
mankind is — the co-eternal Word and only begotton Son of 
the Living God, incarnate, tempted, agonizing (ag07iistes 
d/wv^o.usvoj:) , crucified, submitting to death, resurgent, com- 
municant of his Spirit, ascendant, and obtaining for his 
Church the descent and communion of the Holy Spirit, the 
Comforter. 

II. The causative act is — a spiritual and transcendent 
mystery, that passeth all understanding. 

III. The effect caused is — the being born anew : as be- 
fore in the flesh to the world, so now born in the spirit to 
Christ. 

IV. The consequences from the effect are — sanctiflca- 
tion from sin, and liberation from the inherent and penal con- 
sequences of sin in the world to come, with all the means 
and processes of sanctification by the Word and the Spirit : 
these consequents being the same for the sinner relatively to 
God and his own soul, as the satisfaction of a debt for a debt- 
or relatively to his creditor ; as the sacrificial atonement 
made by the priest for the transgressor of the Mosaic Law ; 
as the reconciliation to an alienated parent for a son who had 
estranged himself from his father's house and presence ; and 
as a redemptive ransom for a slave or captive. 

Now I complain, that this metaphorical naming of the trans- 
cendent causative act through the medium of its proper ef- 
fects from actions and causes of familiar occurrence connect- 
38 



298 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

ed with the former by similarity of result, has been mistaken 
for an intended designation of the essential character of the 
causative act itself ; and that thus divines have interpreted de 
omni what was spoken de singula, and magnified a partial 
equation into a total identity. 

I will merely hint to my more learned readers, and to the 
professional students of theology, that the origin of this error 
is to be sought for in the discussions of the Greek Fathers, 
and (at a later period) of the Schoolmen, on the obscure and 
abysmal subject of the divine A-seity, and the distinction be- 
tween the deXyjfjia and the £?ouX$, that is, the Absolute Will, 
as the universal ground of all being, and the election and pur- 
pose of God in the personal Idea, as the Father. And this 
view would have allowed me to express what I believe to be 
the true import and Scriptural idea of Redemption in terms 
much more nearly resembling those used ordinarily by the 
Calvinistic divines, and with a conciliative show of coinci- 
dence. But this motive was outweighed by the reflection, 
that I could not rationally have expected to be understood 
by those, to whom I most wish to be intelligible : et si non 
vis intelligi, cur vis legi ? 

Not to countervene the purpose of a Synopsis, I have de- 
tached the confirmation or explanatory remarks from the an- 
swers to questions II. and III., and place them below as scho- 
lia. A single glance of the eye will enable the reader to re- 
connect each with the sentence it is supposed to follow. 

SCHOLIUM TO ANS. IT. 

Nevertheless, the fact or actual truth having been assured 
to us by revelation, it is not impossible, by stedfast meditation 
on the idea and supernatural character of a personal will, for 
a mind spiritually disciplined to satisfy itself, that the redemp- 
tive act supposes (and that our redemption is even negative- 
ly conceivable only on the supposition of) an agent who can 
at once act on the will as an exciting cause, quasi ab extra ; 



ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 299 

and in the will, as the condition of it potential, and the ground 
of its actual, being. 

SCHOLIUM TO ANS. III. 

Where two subjects, that stand to each other in the rela- 
tion of antithesis or contradistinction, are connected by a mid- 
dle term common to both, the sense of this middle term is in- 
differently determinable by either ; the preferability of the one 
or the other in any given case being decided by the circum- 
stance of our more frequent experience of, or greater familiari- 
ty with, the term in this connexion. Thus, if I put hydrogen 
and oxygen gas, as opposite poles, the term gas is common 
to both ; and it is a matter of indifference by which of the 
two bodies I ascertain the sense of the term. Cut if, for the 
conjoint purposes of connection and contrast, I oppose trans- 
parent crystallized alumen to opaque derb or uncrystallized 
alumen ; — it may easily happen to be far more convenient for 
me to shew the sense of the middle term, that is alumen, by 
a piece of pipe-clay than by a sapphire or ruby ; especially if 
I should be describing the beauty and preciousness of the 
latter to a peasant woman/or in a district where a ruby was a 
rarity which the fewest only had an opportunity of seeing. 
This is a plain rule of common logic directed in its applica- 
tion by common sense. 

Now let us apply this to the case in hand. The two oppo- 
sites, here arc flesh and spirit : this in relation to Christ, 
that in relation to the world ; and these two opposites are 
connected by the middle term, birth, which is of course com- 
mon to both. But for the same reason, as in the instance last 
mentioned, the interpetation of the common term is to be as- 
certained from its known sense, in the more familiar connex- 
ion — birth, namely, in relation to our natural life and to the 
organized body, by which we belong to the present world. — 
Whatever the word signifies in this connexion, the same es- 
sentially (in kind though not in dignity and value) must be 
its signification in the other. How else muld it be (what yet 



300 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

in this text it undeniably is,) the punctumindijferens, orno- 
ta communis, of the thesis, flesh or the world and the anti- 
thesis Spirit or Christ ? We might therefore, upon the sup- 
position of a writer having been speaking of river-water in 
distinction from rain-water, as rationally pretend that in the 
latter phrase the term, water, was to be understood metaphor- 
ically, as that the word, birth, is a metaphor, and means on* 
ly so and so in the Gospel according to St. John. 

There is, I am aware, a numerous and powerful party iri 
our Church, so numerous and powerful as not seldom to be 
entitled the Church, who hold and publicly teach, thst " Re- 
generation is only Baptism." Nay, the writer of the article 
on the lives of Scott and Newton, in our ablest and most re- 
spectable review, is but one among many who do not hesitate 
to brand the contrary opinion as heterodoxy, and schismatic- 
al superstition. I trust, that I think as seriously as most men 
of the evil of schism ; but with every disposition to pay the ut- 
most deference to an acknowledged majority, including, it is 
said, a very large proportion of the present dignitaries of our 
Church, I cannot but think it a sufficient reply, that if Regen- 
eration 1 means Baptism, Baptism must mean Regeneration ; 
and this too, as Christ himself has declared, a regeneration in 
the spirit. Now I would ask these divines this simple ques- 
tion : Do they belie vingly suppose a spiritual regenerative 
power and agency inhering in or accompanying the sprink- 
ling a few drops of Water on an infant's face ? They cannot 
evade the question by saying that Baptism is a type or sign. 
For this would be to supplant their own assertion that Re 
generation means Baptism, by the contradictory admission, 
Ihat Regeneration is the signification, of which Baptism is 
the significant. Unless, indeed, they would incur the absur- 
dity of saying, that Regeneration is a type of Regeneration, 
and Baptism a type of itself — or that Baptism only means 
Baptism ! And this indeed is the plain consequence to 
which they might be driven, should they answer the above 
question in the negative. 



ON SPIRITUAL HELIGION. 301 

But if their answer be, " Yes ! we do suppose and believe 
this efficiency in the Baptismal act" — I have not another word 
to say. Only, perhaps, I might be permitted to express a 
hope that, for consistency's sake they would speak less slight- 
ingly of the insufflation, and extreme unction, used in the Ro- 
mish Church ; notwithstanding the not easily to be answered 
arguments of our Christian Mercury, the all-eloquent Jeremy 
Taylor, respecting the latter, — " which, since it is used when 
the man is above half dead, when he can exercise no act of 
understanding, it must needs be nothing. For no rational 
man can think, that any ceremony can make a spiritual 
change without a spiritual act of him that is to be changed ; 
nor that it can work by way of nature, or by charm, but mor- 
ally and after the manner of reasonable creatures."* 

It is too obvious to require suggestion, that these words 
here quoted apply with yet greater force and propriety to the 
point in question ; as the babe is an unconscious subject, 
which the dying man need not be supposed to be. My 
avowed convictions respecting Regeneration with the spiritual 
Baptism, as its condition and initiative, (Luke iii. 16 ; Matt. i. 
7 ; Matt. iii. 1 1), and of which the sacramental rite, the Bap- 
tism of John, was appointed by Christ to remain as the sign and 
figure ; and still more, perhaps, my belief respecting the mys- 
tery of the Eucharist, (concerning which I hold the same 
opinions as Bucer,f Peter Martyr, and presumably Cranmer 
himself — these convictions and this belief will, I doubt not, 
be deemed by the orthodox dc more Grotii, who improve the 
letter of Arminius with the spirit of Socinus, sufficient data 
to bring me in guilty of irrational and superstitious mys- 
ticism. But I abide by a maxim which I learned at an early 
period of my theological studies, from Benedict Spinoza. — 
Where the alternative lies between the absurd and the in- 



* Dedicntion to Holy Dying. Ed. 
t Strype — Cranmrr, Append. Ed. 



302 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

comprehensible, no wise man can be at a loss which of the 
two to prefer. To be called irrational, is a trifle ; to be so, 
and in matters of religion, is far otherwise : and whether the 
irrationality consists in men's believing (that is, in having per- 
suaded themselves that they believe) against reason or with- 
out reason, I have been early instructed to consider it as a 
sad and serious evil, pregnant with mischiefs, political and 
moral. And by none of my numerous instructors so impres- 
sively as by that great and shining light of our Church in the 
aera of her intellectual splendor, Bishop Jeremy Taylor : from 
one of whose works, and that of especial authority for the 
safety as well as for the importance of the principle/inasmuch 
as it was written expressly ad populum, I will now, both for 
its own intrinsic worth, and to relieve the attention, wearied, 
perhaps, by the length and argumentative character of the 
preceding discussion, interpose the following Aphorism. 

APHORISM XX. 

TAVLOB. 

Whatever is against right reason, that no faith can oblige 
us to believe. For though reason is not the positive and af- 
firmative measure of our faith, and our faith ought to be 
larger than (speculative)* reason, and take something into 
her heart, that reason can never take into her eye ; yet in all 
our creed there can be nothing against reason. If reason 
justlv contradicts an article, it is not of the household of faith. 
In this there is no difficulty, but that in practice we take 
care that we do not call that reason, which is not so.f For 



* Which it could not be in respect of spiritual truths and objects super- 
sensuous, if it were the same with, and merely another name for the facul- 
ty judging according to sense — that is, the understanding, (or as Taylor 
most often calls it in distinction from reason) discourse (discursus seu fur- 
ultas discursivarcl discursoria). The reason, so instructed and so actua- 
ted as Taylor requires in the sentence immediately following, is what I 
have called the spirit. 

t See ante pp. 189—90. FA. 



ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 30 3 

although reason is a right judge,* yet it ought not to pass 
sentence in an inquiry of faith, until all the information be 
brought in ; all that is within, and all that is without, all that 
is above, and all that is below ; all that concerns it in expe- 
rience, and all that concerns it in act ; whatsoever is of perti- 
nent observation, and whatsoever is revealed. For else rea- 
son may argue very well, and yet conclude falsely. It may 
conclude well in logic, and yet infer a false proposition in 
theology. (• But when our judge is fully and truly informed 
in all that whence she is to make her judgment, we may safe- 
ly follow her whithersoever she invites us. 

APHORISM XXI. 

TAYLOR. 

He that speaks against his own reason, speaks against his 
own conscience : and therefore it is certain, no man serves 
God with a good conscience, who serves him against his 
reason. 

APHORISM XXII. 



By the eye of reason through the telescope of faith, that is, 
revelation, we may see what without this telescope we could 
never have known to exist. But as one that shuts the eye 
hard, and with violence curls the eye-lid, forces a fantastic 
fire from the crystalline humor, and espies a light that never 
shines, and sees thousands of little fires that never burn ; so 
is he that blinds the eye of reason, and pretends to see by an 
eye of faith. He makes little images of notions, and some 
stones dance before him ; but he is not guided by the light 
nor instructed by the proposition, but sees like a man in his 
sleep. In no case can true reason and a right faith oppose 
each other. 



* See ante pp. 180—1, 222—3. Ed. 
I Se« ante p. 181. Ed 



304 AIDS TO KEFLECTION. 

NOTE PKEFATORY TO 
APHORISM XXIII. 

Less on my own account, than in the hope of fore-arming 
my youthful friends, I add one other transcript from Bishop 
Taylor, as from a writer to whose name no taint or suspicion 
of Calvinistic or schismatical tenets can attach, and for the 
purpose of softening the oiTence which, I cannot but foresee, 
will be taken at the positions asserted in the first paragraph 
of Aphorism VII. p. 197, and the documental proofs of the 
same in p. 200 — 201 ; and this by a formidable party com- 
posed of men ostensibly of the most dissimilar creeds, regu- 
lar Church-divines, voted orthodox by a great majority of 
suffrages, and the so-called free-thinking Christians, and Uni- 
tarian divines. It is the former class alone that I wish to 
conciliate : so far at least as it may be done by removing the 
aggravation of novelty from the offensive article. And sure- 
ly the simple re-assertion of one of c: the two great things," 
which Bishop Taylor could assert as a fact, — which, he 
took for granted, that no Christian would think of controver- 
ting, — should at least be controverted without bitterness by 
his successors in the Church. That which was perfectly safe 
and orthodox in 1657, in the judgment of a devoted Royalist 
and Episcopalian .ought to be at most but a venial heterodoxy 
in 1825. For the rest, I am prepared to hear in answer — 
what has already been so often and with such theatrical effect 
dropped as an extinguisher on my arguments — the famous 
concluding period of one of the chapters of Paley's Moral 
and political Philosophy, declared by Dr. Parr to be the finest 
prose passage in English literature. Be it so. I bow to so 
great an authority. But if the learned doctor would impose 
it on me as the truest as well as the finest, or expect me to ad- 
mire the logic equally with the rhetoric — dpidTa^mi — I start off. 
As I have been un-English enough to find in Pope's tomb- 
epigram on Sir Isaac New ton nothing better than a gross and 
wrongful falsehood, conveyed in an enormous and irreverent 



ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 305 

hyperbole ; so with regard to this passage in question, free as 
it is from all faults of taste, I have yet the hardihood to con- 
fess that in the sense in which the words 'discover' and 
'prove,' are here used and intended, I am not convinced of 
the truth of the principle, (that he alone discovers who 
proves), and I question the correctness of the particular case, 
brought as instance and confirmation. I doubt the validity 
of the assertion as a general rule ; and I deny it, applied to 
matters of faith, to the verities of religion, in the belief of 
which there must always be somewhat of moral election, "an 
act of the will in it as well as of the understanding, as much 
love in it as discursive power. True Christian faith must 
have in it something of in-evidence, something that must be 
made up by duty and by obedience." — * But most readily 
do I admit, and most fervently do I contend, that the miracles 
worked by Christ, both as miracles and fulfilments of prophe- 
cy, both as signs and as wonders, made plain discovery, and 
gave unquestionable proof, of his divine character and author- 
ity ; that they were to the whole Jewish nation true and 
appropriate evidences, that He was indeed come who had 
promised and declared to their forefathers, Behold your God 
will com-: ivith vengeance, even God ivith a recompense. 
lie ivill come and save you.]' I receive them as proofs, 
therefore, of the truth of every word which he taught who 
was himself The Word ; and as sure evidences of the final 
victory over death and of the life to come, in that they were 
manifestations of Him, who said : J am the resurrection and 
the life. 

The obvious inference from the passage in question, if not 
its express import, is : Miracula experimenta crucis esse, 
quibus solis probandum erat, homines non, pecudum instar, 
omnino perituros esse. Now this doctrine I hold to be alto- 
gether alien from the spirit, and without authority in the let- 



* J. Taylor's Worthy Communicant. Ed. 

? Isaiah xxxiv. commred with Matt. x. 34. and Luke xii. 49. Ed. 
3!) * 



306 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

ter, of Scripture. I can recall nothing in the history of hu- 
man belief that should induce me, I find nothing in my own 
moral being that enables me, to understand it. I can, however 
perfectly well understand, the readiness of those divines in 
hoc Paleii dictum ore pleno jurare, qui nihil aliud in toto 
Evangelio invenire posse profitentur. The most unqualified 
admiration of this superlative passage I find perfectly in char- 
acter for those, who while Socianism and Ultra-Socianism 
are spreading like the roots of an elm, on and just below the 
surface, through the whole land, and here and there at least 
have even dipped under the garden-fence of the Church, and 
blunted the edge of the labourer's spade in the gayest par- 
terres of our Baal-hamon, — who, — while heresies, to which 
the framers and compilers of our Liturgy, Homilies, and Ar- 
ticles would have refused the very name of Christianity, 
meet their eyes on the list of religious denominations for eve- 
ry city and large town throughout the kingdom — can yet 
congratulate themselves with Dr. Paley, in his book on the 
Evidences,* that the rent has not reached the foundation ; — 
that is, that the corruption of man's will ; that the responsi- 
bility of man in any sense in which it is not equally predica- 
te of dogs and horses ; that the divinity of our Lord, and 
his pre-existence ; that sin, and redemption through the mer- 
of Christ ; and grace ; and the especial aids of the Spirit • 
and the efficacy of prayer ; and the subsistency of the Holy 
Ghost ; may all be extruded without breach or rent in the 
essentials of Christian Faith ; — that a man may deny and re- 
nounce them all, and remain a fundamental Christian, not- 
withstanding ! But there are many who cannot keep up with 
Latitudinarians of such a stride ; and I trust that the majori- 
ty of serious believers are in this predicament. Now for all 
these it would seem more in character to be of Bishop Taylor's 
opinion, that the belief in question is presupposed in a con- 
vert to the truth in Christ — but at all events not to circulate 
in the great whispering gallery of the religious public sus- 

* Conclusion, Part. III. ch. 8. Ed. 



ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 



307 



picions and hard thoughts of those who, like myself, are of 
this opinion ; who do not dare decry the religious instincts of 
humanity as a baseless dream ; who hold, that to excavate the 
ground under the faith of all mankind, is a very questionable 
method of building up our faith, as Christians ; who fear, that 
instead of adding to, they should detract from, the honour of 
the Incarnate Word by disparaging the light of the Word, 
that was in the beginning, and which lighteth every man ; 
and who, under these convictions, can tranquilly leave it to 
be disputed, in some new Dialogues in the shades, between 
the fathers of the Unitarian Church on the one side, and Mai- 
monides, Moses Mendelssohn, and Lessing on the other, 
whether the famous passage in Paley does or does not con- 
tain the three dialectic flaws, petitio principii, argument urn 
in circulo, and argumentum contra rem a premisso rem ip~ 
sam includente. 

Yes ! fervently do I contend, that to satisfy the under* 
standing that there is a future state, was not the specific ob- 
ject of the Christian Dispensation ; and that neither the belief 
of a future state, nor the rationality of this belief, is the ex- 
clusive attribute of the Christian religion. An essential, a 
fundamental, article of all religion it is, and therefore of the 
Christian ; but otherwise than as in connexion with the sal- 
vation of mankind from the terrors of that state, among the 
essential articles peculiar to the Gospel Creed (those, for in- 
stance, by which it is conlra-distinguished from the creed of 
a religious Jew) I do not place it. And before sentence is 
passed against me, as heterodox, on this ground, let not my 
judges forget who it was that assured us, that if a man 
did not believe in a state of retribution after death, previous- 
ly and on other grounds, neither would he believe, though a 
man should be raised from the dead. 

Again, I am questioned as to my proofs of a future state by 
men who are so far, and only so far, professed believers, that 
they admit a God and the existence of a law from God. I give 
them : and the questioners turn from me with a scoff or incred- 



308 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

ulous smile. Now should others of a less scanty creed infer the 
weakness of the reasons assigned by me from their failure in 
convincing these men ; may I not remind them, who it was, 
to whom a similar question was proposed by men of the same 
class ? But at all events it will be enough for my own sup- 
port to remember it ; and to know that He held such ques- 
tioners, who could not find a sufficing proof of this all-con- 
cerning verity in the words, The God of Abraham, the God 
of Isaac, and the God of Jacob unworthy of any other an- 
swer — men not to be satisfied by any proof — by| any such 
proofs, at least, as are compatible with the ends and purposes 
of all religious conviction ; — by any proofs that would not 
destroy the faith they were intended to confirm, and reverse 
the whole character and quality of its effects and influences. 
But if, notwithstanding all here offered in defence of my opin- 
ion, I must still be adjudged heterodox and in error, — what 
can I say but that malo cum Platone errare, and take refuge 
behind the ample shield of Bishop Jeremy Taylor. 

APHORISM XXIII. 

TAYLOR. 

In order to his own glory, and for the manifestation of 
his goodness, and that the accidents of this world might not 
overmuch trouble those good men who suffered evil things, 
God was pleased to do two great things. The one was : that 
he sent his Son into the world to take upon him our nature ? 
that every man might submit to a necessity, from which God's 
own Son was not exempt, when it behoved even Christ to 
suffer, and so to enter into glory. The other great thing 
was : that God did not only by revelation and the sermons 
of the Prophets to his Church, but even to all mankind com- 
petently teach, and effectively persuade, that the soul of man 
does not die ; and though things were ill here, yet to the good 
who usually feel most of the evils of this life, they should 
end in honour and advantages. And therefore Cicero had 
reason on his side to conclude, that there is a time and place 
after this life, wherein the wicked shall be punished, and the 



ON SPIRITUAL UELIGION. 309 

virtuous rewarded ; when he considered that Orpheus and 
Socrates, and many others, just men and benefactors of man- 
kind, were either slain or oppressed to death by evil men. 
And all these received not the promise. But when virtue 
made men poor, and free speaking of brave truths made the 
wise to lose their liberty : when an excellent life hastened an 
opprobrious death, and the obeying- reason and our conscience 
lost us our lives, or at least all the means and conditions of 
obeying them : it was but time to look about for another 
state of things where justice should rule, and virtue find her 
own portion. And therefore men cast out every line, and 
turned every stone, and tried every argument : and sometimes 
proved it well, and when they did not, yet they believed 
strongly ; and they were sure of the thing, when they were 
not sure of the argument.* 

COMMENT. 

A fact may be truly stated, and yet the cause or reason 
asssigned for it mistaken, or inadequate, or pars pro toto, — 
one only or few of many that might or should have been ad- 
duced. The preceding Aphorism is an instance in point* 
The phenomenon here brought forward by the Bishop, as 
the ground and occasion of men's belief of a future state — 
namely, the frequent, not to say ordinary, disproportion be- 
tween moral worth and worldly prosperity — must, indeed, 
at all times and in all countries of the civilized world have 
led the observant and reflecting few, the men of meditative 
habits and strong feelings of natural equity, to a nicer con- 
sideration of the current belief, whether instinctive or tradi- 
tional. By forcing the soul in upon herself, this enigma of 
Saint and Sage from Job, David and Solomon, to Claudian 
and Boetius, — this perplexing disparity of success and desert, 
— has, I doubt not, with such men been the occasion of a 
steadier and more distinct consciousness of a something in 

* Sermon at the Funeral of Sir George Dalston. Ed. 



aio 



AIDS TO REFLECTION. 



man different in kind, and which not merely distinguishes but 
contra-distinguishes him from brute animals — at the same time 
that it lias brought into closer view an enigma of yet harder 
solution — the fact, I mean, of a contradiction in the human 
being, of which no traces are observable elsewhere, in ani- 
mate or inanimate nature. A struggle of jarring impulses ; 
a mysterious diversity between the injunctions of the mind 
and the elections of the will ; and (last not least) the utter in- 
commensurateness and the unsatisfying qualities of the things 
around us, that yet are the only objects which our senses disco- 
ver, or our appetites require us to pursue : — hence for the 
finer and more contemplative spirits the ever-strengthening 
suspicion, that the two jyheenomena must in some way or 
other stand in close connexion with each other, and that the 
riddle of fortune and circumstance is but a form or effluence 
of the riddle of man : — and hence again, the persuasion, that 
the solution of both problems is to be sought for — hence the 
presentiment, that this solution will be found — in the contra- 
distinctive constituent of humanity, in the something of hu- 
man nature, which is exclusively human ; — and — as the ob- 
jects discoverable by the senses, as all the bodies and sub- 
stances that we can touch, measure, and weigh, are either 
mere totals, the unity of which results from the parts, and is 
of course only apparent ; or substances, the unity of action 
of which is owing to the nature or arrangement of the parti- 
ble bodies which they actuate or set in motion, (steam for 
instance, in a steam-engine) ; — as on the one hand the con- 
ditions and known or conceivable properties of all the objects 
which perish and utterly cease to be, together with all the 
properties which we ourselves have in common with these 
perishable things, differ in kind from the acts and properties 
peculiar to our humanity, so that the former cannot even be 
conceived, cannot without a contradiction in terms be predi- 
cated, of the proper and immediate subject of the latter — (for 
who would not smile at an ounce of truth, or a square foot of 
honour ?) — and as, on the other hand, whatever things in 



ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 3 1 1 

visible nature have the character of permanence, and endure 
amid continual flux unchanged like a rainbow in a fast-flying 
shower, (for example, beauty, order, harmony, finality, law,) 
are all akin to the peculia of humanity, are all congenera ot 
mind and will, without which indeed they would not only 
exist in vain, as pictures for moles, but actually not exist at 
all : — hence, finally, the conclusion that the soul of man, as 
the subject of mind and will must likewise possess a princi- 
ple of permanence, and be destined to endure. And were 
these lighter than they are, yet as a small weight will make a 
scale descend, where there is nothing in the opposite scale, 
or painted weights, which have only an illusive relief or prom- 
inence ; so in the scale of immortality slight reasons are in 
effect weighty, and sufficient to determine the judgment, 
there being no counter-weight, no reasons against them, and 
no facts in proof of the contrary, that would not prove equal- 
ly well the cessation of the eye on the removal or diffraction 
of the eyeglass, and the dissolution or incapacity of the mu- 
sician on the fracture of his instrument or its strings. 

But though I agree with Taylor so far, as not to doubt that 
the misallotment of worldly goods and fortunes was one prin-* 
cipal occasion, exciting well-disposed and spiritually -a. waken-, 
ed natures by reflections and reasonings, such as I have here 
supposed, to mature the presentiment of immortality into full 
consciousness, into a principle of action and a well-spring of 
strength and consolation ; I cannot concede to this circum- 
stance any thing like the importance and extent of efficacy 
which he in this passage attributes to it. I am persuaded, 
that as the belief of all mankind, of all* tribes, and nations, 



* I say, all : for the accounts of one or two travelling French philoso- 
phers, professed atheists and partizans of infidelity, respecting one or two 
African hordes, Caffres, and poor outlawed Boschmen, hunted out of their 
humanity, ought not to be regarded as exceptions. And as to Hearn's 
assertion respecting the non-existence and rejection of the belief among the 
Copper-Indians, it is not only hazarded on very weak and insufficient 
grounds, but he himself, in another part of his work, unconsciously sup- 
plies data, from whence the eontrary may safely be concluded. Hearn's 
perhaps, put down his friend Motannabbi's Fort-philosophy for the opinion 



312 



AIDS TO REFLECTION. 



and languages, in all ages, and in all states of social union, it 
must be referred to far deeper grounds, common to man as 
man ; and that its fibres are to be traced to the tap-root of 
humanity. I have long entertained, and do not hesitate to 
avow, the conviction that the argument from universality of 
belief urged by Barrow and others in proof of the first article 
of the Creed, is neither in point of fact — for two very differ- 
ent objects may be intended, and two or more diverse and 
even contradictory conceptions may be expressed, by the same 
name — nor in legitimacy of conclusion as strong and unex- 
ceptionable, as the argument from the same ground for the 
continuance of our personal being after death. The bull-calf 
butts with smooth and unarmed brow. Throughout anima- 
ted nature, of each characteristic organ and faculty there ex- 
ists a pre-assurance, an instinctive and practical anticipation ; 
and no preassurance common to a whole species does in any 
instance prove delusive.* All other prophecies of nature 
have their exact fulfilment — in every other ingrafted word 
of promise, nature is found true to her word ; and is it in her 
noblest creature, that she tells her first lie ? — (The reader 
will, of course, understand, that I am here speaking in the 
assumed character of a mere naturalist, to whom no light of 
revelation had been vouchsafed ; one, who 

with gentle heart 



Had worshipp'd nature in the hill and valley, 
Not knowing- what he loved, but loved it all.) 

Whether, however, the introductory part of the Bishop's ar- 



ofhis tribe; and from his high appreciation of the moral character of this 
murderous gymnosophist, it might, I fear, be inferred, that Hearne himself 
was not the very person one would, of all others, have chosen for the pur- 
pose of instituting- the inquiry. 

* See Baron Field's Letters from New South Wales. The poor natives, 
the lowest in the scale of humanity, evince no symptom of any religion, or 
the belief of an}' superior power as the maker of the world ; but yet have 
no doubt that the spirits of their ancestors survive in the form of porpoises, 
and mindful of their descendants, with imperishable affection drive the 
whales ashore for them to feast on. 



6n spiritual religion. 313 

gumcntis to be received with more or less qualification, the 
fact itself, as stated in the concluding sentence of the Apho- 
rism, remains unaffected, and is beyond exception true. 

If other argument and yet higher authority were required, 
I might refer to St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans, and to tho 
Epistle to the Hebrews, which whether written by Paul, or, 
as Luther conjectured, by Apollos, is out of all doubt the 
work of an Apostolic man filled with the Holy Spirit, and 
composed while the Temple and the glories of the Temple 
worship were yet in existence. Several of the Jewish and 
still Judaizing converts had begun to vacillate in their faith, 
and to stumble at the stumbling-stone of the contrast be- 
tween the pomp and splendour of the old Law, and the sim- 
plicity and humility of the Christian Church. To break this 
sensual charm, to unfascinate these bedazzled brethren, the 
writer to the Hebrews institutes a comparison between the 
two religions, and demonstrates, the superior spiritual gran- 
deur, the greater intrinsic worth and dignity of the religion of 
Christ. On the other hand, at Rome where the Jews formed 
a numerous, powerful, and privileged class (many of them, 
too, by their proselyting zeal and frequent disputations with 
the priests and philosophers trained and exercised polemics) 
the recently-founded Christian Church was, it appears, in 
greater danger from the reasonings of the Jewish doctors and 
even of its own Judaizing members, respecting the use of the 
new revelation. Thus the object of the Epistle to the He- 
brews was to prove the superiority of the Christian religion ; 
the object of the Epistle to the Romans to prove its necessity. 
Now there was one argument extremely well calculated to 
stagger a faith newly transplanted and still loose at its roots, 
and which, if allowed, seemed to preclude the possibility of 
the Christian religion, as an especial and immediate revela- 
tion from God — on the high grounds, at least, on which the 
Apostle of the Gentiles placed it, and with the exclusive rights 
and superseding character, which he claimed for it. "You 
admit " (said they) " the divine origin and authority of tho 
40 



314 



AIDS TO REFLECTION. 



Law given to Moses, proclaimed with thunders and light- 
nings and the voice of the Most High heard by all the people 
from Mount Sinai, and introduced, enforced, and perpetua- 
ted by a series of the most stupendous miracles. Our reli- 
gion, then, was given by God : and can God give a perishable 
imperfect religion ? If not perishable, how can it have a suc- 
cessor ? If perfect, how can it need to be superseded? — 
The entire argument is indeed comprised in the latter attri- 
bute of our law. We know, from an authority which you 
yourselves acknowledge for divine, that our religion is perfect. 
He is the rock, and his work is perfect. (Deut. xxxii. 4.) 
If then the religion revealed by God himself to our forefathers 
is perfect, what need have we of another ?" — This objection, 
both from its importance and from its extreme plausibility, 
for the persons at least to whom it was addressed, required 
an answer in both Epistles. And accordingly, the answer is 
included in the one (that to the Hebrews) and it is the espe- 
cial purpose and main subject of the other. And how does 
the Apostle answer it ? Suppose — and the case is not im- 
possible* — a man of sense, who had, studied the evidences of 
Priestly and Paley with Warburton's Divine Legation, but 
who should be a perfect stranger to the writings of St. Paul ; 
and that I put this question to him : — " What do you think, 



* The case here supposed actually occurred in my own experience in the 
person of a Spanish refugee, of English parents, but from his tenth year 
resident in Spain, and bred in a family of wealthy, but ignorant and bigot- 
ed, Roman Catholics. In mature manhood he returned to England, dis- 
gusted with the conduct of the priests and monks, which had indeed for 
some years produced on his mind its so common effect among the better-in- 
formed natives of the South of Europe — a tendency to Deism. The re- 
sults, however, of the infidel system in France, with his opportunities of 
observing the effects of irreligion on the French officers in Spain, on the 
one hand ; and the undeniable moral and intellectual superiority of Protes- 
tant Britain on the other, had not been lost on him : and here he began to 
think for himself and resolved to study the subject. He had gone through 
Bishop Warburton's Divine Legation, and Paley's Evidences; but had nev- 
er read the New Testament consecutively, and the Epistles not at all. 



ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 315 

will St. Paul's answer be r" " Nothing," he would reply, 
*' can be more obvious. It is in vain, the Apostle will urge, 
that you bring your notions of probability and inferences from 
the arbitrary interpretation of a word in an absolute rather 
than a relative sense, to invalidate a known fact. It is a 
fact, that your religion is (in your sense of the word) not per- 
fect ; for it is deficient in one of the two essential constitu- 
ents of all true religion, the belief of a future state on solid 
and sufficient grounds. Had the doctrine indeed been reveal- 
ed, the stupendous miracles, which you most truly affirm, to 
have accompanied and attested the first promulgation of your 
religion, would have supplied the requisite proof. But the 
doctrine was not revealed ; and your belief of a future state 
rests on no solid grounds. You believe it (as far as you be- 
lieve it. and as many of you as profess this belief) without 
revelation, and without the only proper and sufficient evi- 
dence of its truth. Your religion, therefore, though ofdivine 
origin, is (if taken in disjunction from the new revelation, 
which I am commissioned to proclaim) but a religio dimidia- 
ta ; and the main purpose, the proper character, and the 
paramount object of Christ's mission and miracles, is to sup- 
ply the missing half by a clear discovery of a future state ; — 
and (since " he alone discovers who proves ") by proving the 
truth of the doctrine, now for the first time declared with 
the requisite authority, by the requisite, appropriate, and 
alone satisfactory evidences." 

But is this the Apostle's answer to the Jewish oppugners, 
and the Judaizing false brethren, of the Church of Christ ? — 
It is not the answer, it does not resemble the answer, return- 
ed by the Apostle. It is neither parallel nor corradial with 
the line of argument in either of the two Epistles, or with 
any one line ; but it is a chord that traverses them all, and 
only touches where it cuts across. In the Epistle to the 
Hebrews, the directly contrary position is repeatedly asserted : 
and in the Epistle to the Romans, it is every where supposed. 
The death to which the Law sentenced all sinners (and 



316 



AIDS TO HEFLECTIOH. 



which even the Gentiles without the revealed law had an- 
nounced to them by their consciences, the judgment of God 
having been made known even to them) must be the same 
death, from which they were saved by the faith of the Son of 
God ; or the Apostle's reasoning would be senseless, his 
antithesis a mere equivoque, a play on a word, quod idem 
sonat, aliud vult. Christ redeemed mankind from the curse 
of the law : and we all know, that it was not from temporal 
death, or the penalties and afflictions of the present life, that 
believers have been redeemed. The Law, of which the in- 
spired sage of Tarsus is speaking, from which no man can 
plead excuse ; the Law miraculously delivered in thunders 
from Mount Sinai, which was inscribed on tables of stone for 
the Jews, and written in the hearts of all men (Rom. ii. 15.) 
—the law holy and spiritual ! What was the great point, 
of which this law, in its own name, offered no solution ; — 
the mystery, which it left behind the veil, or in the cloudy 
tabernacle of types and figurative sacrifices ? Whether there 
was a judgment to come, and souls to suffer the dread sen- 
tence ? Or was it not far rather — what are the means of es- 
cape ; where may grace be found, and redemption ? St. 
Paul says, the latter. The law brings condemnation : but 
the conscience-sentenced transgressor's question, " What 
shall I do to be saved ? Who will intercede for me ?" she 
dismisses as beyond the jurisdiction of her court, and takes 
no cognizance thereof, save in prophetic murmurs or mute 
out-shadowings of mystic ordinances and sacrificial types. — 
Not, therefore, that there is a life to come, and a future state ; 
but what each individual soul may hope for itself therein ; 
and on what grounds : and that this state has been rendered 
an object of aspiration and fervent desire, and a source of 
thanksgiving and exceeding joy ; and by whom, and through 
whom, and for whom, and by what means, and under what 
conditions — these are the peculiar and distinguishing funda- 
mentals of the Christian Faith ! These are the revealed 
lights and obtained privileges of the Christian Dispensation. 



ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 317 

Not alone the knowledge of the boon, but the precious ines- 
timable boon itself, is the grace and truth that came by Je- 
sus Christ. I believe Moses, I believe Paul ; but I believe 
in Christ. 

APHORISM. 
ON BAPTISM. 

LEIGHTOIT 

In those days came John the Baptist, preaching. — It will 
suffice for our present purpose, if by these* words we direct 
the attention to the origin, or at least first Scriptural record, 
of Baptism, and to the combinement of preaching therewith; 
their aspect each to the other, and their concurrence to one 
excellent end ; the word unfolding the sacrament, and the 
sacrament sealing the word ; the word as alight, informing 
and clearing the sense of the seal ; and this again as a seal, 
confirming and ratifying the truth of the word ; as you see 
some significant seals, or engraven signets, have a word about 
them expressing their sense. 

But truly the word is a light, and the sacraments have in 
them of the same light illuminating them. This "sacrament 
of Baptism, the ancients do particularly express by light. — 
Yet are they both nothing but darkness to us, till the same 
light shine in our hearts ; for till then we are nothing but 
darkness ourselves, and therefore the most luminous things 
are so to us. Noonday is as midnight to a blind man. And 
we see these ordinances, the word and the sacrament, with- 



* By certain Biblical philologists of the Teutonic school (men distin- 
guished by learning, but still more characteristically by hardihood in 
conjecture, and who suppose the Gospels to have undergone several suc- 
cessive revisions and enlargements by, or under the authority of, the sacred 
historians) these words are contended to have been, in the first delivery 
the common commencement of all the Gospels y.c.j'a a^y.a (that is, accord- 
jngto the flesh,) in distinction from St. John's or the Gospel y.etia nvtvuat* 
(that ii, according to the Spirit.) 



318 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

out profit or comfort for the most part, because we have not 
that divine light within us. And we have it not, because we 
ask it not. 

COMMENT. 

Or an aid to reflection in the forming of a sound judg- 
ment respecting the purport and purpose of the Baptis- 
mal rite, and a just appreciation of its value and impor- 
tance. 

A born and bred Baptist, and paternally descended from 
the old orthodox Non-conformists, and both in his own and 
in his father's right a very dear friend of mine, had married a 
member of the National Church. In consequence of an anx- 
ious wish expressed by his lady for the Baptism of their first 
child, he solicited me to put him in possession of my views 
respecting this controversy ; though principally as to the de- 
gree of importance which I attached to it. For as to the 
point itself, his natural prepossession in favor of the persua- 
sion in which he was born, had been confirmed by a consci- 
entious examination of the arguments on both sides. At the 
commencement of the preceding Aphorism, or rather as an 
expansion of its subject matter, I will give the substance of 
the conversation : and amply ;shall I have been remunerated, 
should it be read with the interest and satisfaction with which 
it was heard. -More particularly, should any of my readers 
find themseves under the same or similar circumstances. 

Our discussion is rendered shorter and more easy by our 
perfect agreement in certain preliminary points. We both 
disclaim alike every attempt to explain any thing into Scrip- 
ture, and every attempt to explain any thing out of Scrip- 
ture. Or if we regard either with a livelier aversion it.is the 
latter, as being the more fashionable and prevalent. I mean 
the practice of both high and low Grotian divines to explain 
away positive assertions of Scripture on the pretext, that , the 
literal sense is not agreeable to reason, that is, their particular 



ON SPIRITUAL KULIGION. 319 

feason. And inasmuch as (in the only right sense of the 
word) there is no such thing as a particular reason, they must, 
and in fact they do, mean that the literal sense is not accord- 
ant to their understanding, that is, to the notions which their 
understandings have been taught and accustomed to form in 
their school of philosophy. Thus a Platonist who should 
become a Christian would at once, even in texts susceptible 
of a different interpretation, recognize, because he would ex- 
pect to find, several doctrines which the disciple of the Epi- 
curean or mechanic school will not receive on the most posi- 
tive declarations of the divine word. And as we agree in 
the opinion that the Minimi-fidian party err grievously in 
the latter point, so I must concede to you, that too many Paedo- 
baptists (assertors of Infant Baptism) have erred, though less 
grossly, in the former. I have, I confess, no eye for these 
smoke-like wreaths of inference, this ever widening spiral fir- 
go from the narrow aperture of perhaps a single text ; or 
rather an interpretation forced into it by construing an idio- 
matic phrase in an artless narrative with the same absolute- 
ness, as if it had formed part of a mathematical problem. I 
start back from these inverted pyramids, where the apex is 
the base. If I should inform any one that I had called at a 
friend's house, but had found nobody at home, the family 
having all gone to the play ; and if he on the strength of this 
information should take occasion to asperse my friend's wife 
for unmotherly conduct in taking an infant six months old to 
a crowded theatre : would you allow him to press on the 
words "nobody " and "all the family," in justification of the 
slander ? Would you not tell him, that the words were to be 
interpreted by the nature of the subject, the purpose of the 
speaker, and their ordinary acceptation ; and that he must or 
might have known, that infants of that age would not be ad- 
mitted into the theatre ? Exactly so, with regard to the 
words, he and all his household. Had Baptism of infants at 
that early period of the Gospel been a known practice, or had 
this been previously demonstrated, — then indeed the argu- 



320 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

ment, that in all probability there were infants or young chil- 
dren in so large a family, would be no otherwise objectiona- 
ble than as being superfluous, and a sort of anticlimax in lo- 
gic. But if the words are cited as the proof, it would be a 
clear petitio principii, though there had been nothing else 
against it. But when we turn back to the Scriptures preced- 
ing the narrative, and find repentance and belief demanded 
as the terms and indispensable conditions of Baptism — then 
the case above imagined applies in its full force. Equally 
vain is the pretended analogy from Circumcision, which was 
no Sacrament at all : but the means and mark of national dis- 
tinction. In the first instance it was, doubtless, a privilege or 
mark of superior rank conferred on the descendants of Abra- 
ham. In the Patriarchal times this rite was confined (the 
first governments being theocracies) to the priesthood, who 
were set apart to the office from their birth. At a later pe- 
riod this token of the premier class was extended to kings. — 
And thus, when it was re-ordained by Moses for the whole 
Jewish nation, it was at the time said — Ye are all priests and 
kings ; ye are a consecrated people. In addition to this, or 
rather in aid of this, Circumcision was intended to distinguish 
the Jews by some indelible sign : and it was no less necessa- 
ry that Jewish children should be recognizable as Jews than 
Jewish adults — not to mention the greater safety of the rite 
in infancy. Nor was it ever pretended that any grace was 
conferred with it, or that the rite was significant of any in- 
ward or spiritual operation. In short, an unprejudiced and 
competent reader need only peruse the first thirty-three para- 
graphs of the eighteenth section of Taylor's Liberty of Pro- 
phesying ; and then compare with these the remainder of the 
section added by him after the Restoration : those, namely, 
in which he attempts to overthrow his own arguments. I had 
almost said, affects : for such is the feebleness, and so pal- 
pable the sophistry of his answers, that I find it difficult to 
imagine that Taylor himself could have been satisfied with 
them. The only plausible arguments apply with equal force 



ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 32 J 

to Baptist and Predo-Baptist : and would prove, if they pro- 
ved any thing, that both were wrong, and the Quakers only 
in the right. 

Now, in the first place, it is obvious, that nothing conclu- 
sive can be drawn from the silence of the New Testament 
respecting a practice, which, if we suppose it already in use, 
must yet, from the character of the first converts, have been 
of comparatively rare occurrence ; and which, from the pre- 
dominant and more concerning objects and functions of the 
Apostolic writers (1 Cor. i. 17.) was not likely to have been 
mentioned otherwise than incidentally, and very probably 
therefore might not have occurred to them to mention at all. 
But, secondly, admitting that the practice was introduced at 
a later period than that in which the Acts of the Apostles and 
the Epistles were composed : I should yet be fully satisfied, 
that the Church exercises herein a sound* discretion. On 
either supposition, therefore, it is never without regret that I 
see a divine of our Church attempting to erect forts on a po- 
sition so evidently commanded by the strong-hold of his an- 
tagonists. I dread the use which the Socinians may make 
of their example, and the Papists of their failure. Let me 
not, however, deceive you. (The reader understands, that I 
suppose myself conversing with a Baptist.) I am of opinion 

* That every the least permissible form and ordinance, which at different 
times it might be expedient for the Church to enact, are pre-enacted in tha 
New Testament; and that whatever is not to be found there, ought to be 
allowed nowhere — this has been asserted. But that it has been proved, or 
that the tenet is not to be placed among the revulsionary results of the Scrip- 
ture-slighting will-worship of the Romish Church ; it will be more sincere 
to say I disbelieve, than that I doubt. It was chiefly, if not exclusively, in 
reference to the extravagances built on this tenet, that the great Selden 
ventured to declare, that the words, Scrutamini Scripturas, had set the 
world in an uproar. 

Extremes appear to generate each other ; but if we look steadily, there 
will most often be found some common error, that produces both as its 
positive and negative poles. Thus superstitions go by pairs, like the two 
Hungarian sisters, always quarrelling and inveterately averse, but yet 
joined at the trunk. 

II 



322 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

that the divines on your side are chargeable with a far more 
grievous mistake, that of giving a carnal and Judaizing in- 
terpretation to the various Gospel texts in which the terms, 
baptism and baptize, occur, contrary to the express and earn- 
est admonitions of the Apostle Paul. And this I say with 
out in the least retracting my former concession, that the 
texts appealed to, as commanding or authorizing Infant Bap- 
tism, are all without exception made to bear a sense neither 
contained nor deducible : and likewise that (historically con- 
sidered) there exists no sufficient positive evidence, that the 
Baptism of infants was instituted by the Apostles in the prac- 
tice of the Apostolic age.* 

Lastly, we both coincide in the full conviction, that it is 
neither the outward ceremony of Baptism, under any form or 
circumstances, nor any other ceremony, but such a faith in 
Christ as tends to produce a conformity to his holy doctrines 
and example in heart and life, and which faith is itself a de- 
clared mean and condition of our partaking of his spiritual 
body, and of being clothed upon with his righteousness, — 
that properly makes us Christians, and can alone be enjoined 
as an article of faith necessary to salvation, so that the denial 
thereof may be denounced as a damnable heresy. In the 
strictest sense of essential, this alone is the essential in Chris- 
tianity, that the same spirit should be growing in us which 



* More than this I do not consider as necessary for the argument. And 
as to Robinson's assertions in his History of Baptism, that Infant Baptism 
did not commence till the time of Cyprian, who, condemning it as a gene- 
ral practice, allowed it in particular cases by a dispensation of charity ; and 
that it did not aetually become the ordinary rule of the Church, till Augus- 
tine, in the fever of his Anti-Pelagian dispute had introduced the Calviais- 
tic interpretation of Original Sin, and the dire state of infants dying unbap- 
tized — I am so far from acceding to them, that I reject the whole statement 
as rash, and not only unwarranted by the authorities he cites, hut unan- 
swerably confuted by Baxter, Wall, and many other learned Ptedo-baptists 
before and since the publication of Iris work. I confine myself to the asser- 
tion — not that Infant Baptism was not — but that there exist no sufficient, 
proofs that it was — the practice of the Apostolic age. 



ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 323 

was in the fulness of all perfection in Christ Jesus. What- 
ever else is named essential is such because, and only as far 
as, it is instrumental to this, or evidently implied herein. If 
the Baptists hold the visible rite to be indispensable to sal- 
vation, with what terror must they not regard every disease 
that befalls their children between youth and infancy ! But 
if they are saved by the faith of the parent, then the outward 
rite is not essential to salvation, otherwise than as the omis- 
sion should arise from a spirit of disobedience : and in this 
case it is the cause not the effect, the wilful and unbaptized 
heart, not the unbaptizing hand, that perils it. And surely it 
looks very like an inconsistency to admit the vicarious faith 
of the parents and the therein implied promise, that the child 
shall be Christianly bred up, and as much as in them lies 
prepared for the communion of saints — to admit this as safe 
and sufficient in their own instance, and yet to denounce the 
same belief and practice as hazardous and uuavailing in the 
Church — the same, I say, essentially, and only differing from 
their own by the presence of two or three Christian friends as 
additional securities, and by the promise being expressed ! 

But you, my filial friend ! have studied Christ under a 
better teacher — the spirit of adoption, even the spirit that 
was in Paul, and which still speaks to us out of his writings. 
You remember and admire the saying of an old divine, that a 
ceremony duly instituted is a chain of gold around the neck 
of faith ; but if in the wish to make it co-essential and con- 
substantial, you draw it closer and closer, it may strangle the 
faith it was meant to deck and desiguate. You are not so 
unretentive a scholar as to have forgotton the pateris et auro 
of your Virgil : or if you were, you are not so inconsistent a 
reasoner, as to translate the Hebraism, spirit and fire in one 
place by spiritual fire, and yet refuse to translate water and 
spirit by spiritual water in another place: or if, as I myself 
think, the different position marks a different: sense, yet that 
the former must be ejusdem generis with the latter — the wa- 
ter of repentencc, reformation in conduct, and the spirit that 



324 AIDS TO KEFLECTION. 

which purifies the inmost principle of action, as fire purges 
the metal substantially and not cleansing the surface only ! 

But in this instance, it will be said, the ceremony, the out- 
ward and visible sign, is a Scripture ordinance. I will not. 
reply that the Romish Priest says the same of the annointing 
of tne sick with oil and the imposition of hands. No, ni} 
answer is : that this is a very sufficient reason for the contin- 
ued observance of a ceremonial rite so derived and sanction- 
ed, even though its own beauty, simplicity, and natural sig- 
nificancy had pleaded less strongly in its behalf. But it is no 
reason why the Church should forget that the perpetuation of 
a thing does not alter the nature of the thing, and that a cere- 
mony to be perpetuated is to be perpetuated as a ceremony. 
It is no reason why, knowing and experiencing even in the 
majority of her own members the proneness of the human 
mind to* superstition, the Church might not rightfully and 
piously adopt the measures best calculated to check this ten- 
dency, and to correct the abuse to which it had led in any 
particular rite. But of superstitious notions respecting the 
Baptismal ceremony, and of abuse resulting, the instances 
were flagrant and notorious. Such, for instance, was the fre- 
quent deferring of the Baptismal rite to a late period of life, 
and even to the deathbed, in the belief that the mystic water 
would cleanse the baptized person from all sin and (if he died 
immediately after the performance of the ceremony,) send 
him pure and spotless into the other world. 

Nor is this all. The preventive remedy applied by the 
Church is legitimated as well as additionally recommended 
by the following consideration. Where a ceremony answer- 
ed and was intended to answer several purposes, which pur- 
poses at its first institution were blended in respect of the time, 



* Let me be permitted to repeat and apply the note in a former page. — 
Superstition may be defined as super stantium (cujusmodi sunt ceremonies et 
signa externa qua-, nisi in significando, nihili sunt rt ptrnr nihil) substantia- 
te. 



ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 325 

but which afterwards by change of circumstances (as when, 
for instance, a large and ever-increasing proportion of the 
members of the Church, or those who at least bore the Chris- 
tian name, were of Christian parents) were necessarily dis- 
united — then either the Church has no power or authority 
delegated to her (which is shifting the ground of controversy) 
or she must be authorized to choose and determine, to which 
of the several purposes the ceremony should be attached. — 
Now one of the purposes of Baptism was — the making it pub- 
licly manifest, first, what individuals were to be regarded by 
the World (Phil. ii. 15.) as belonging to the visible com- 
munion of Christians : inasmuch as by their demeanour and 
apparent condition, the general estimation of the city set on 
a hill and not to be hid (Matth. v. 14.) could not be affected 
— the city that even in the midst of a crooked and perverse 
nation was bound not only to give no cause, but by all inno- 
cent means to prevent every occasion, of rebuke. Secondly, 
to mark out, for the Church itself, those that were entitled to 
that especial dearness, that watchful disciplinary love and 
loving-kindness, which over and above the affections and 
duties of philanthropy and universal chanty. Christ himself 
had enjoined, and with an emphasis and in a form significant 
of its great and especial importance, — A new commandment 
I give unto you, that ye love one another. By a charity 
wide as sunshine, and comprehending the whole human race, 
the body of Christians was to be placed in contrast with the 
proverbial misanthropy and bigotry of the Jewish Church 
and people : while yet they were to be distinguished and 
known to all men, by the peculiar love and affection display- 
ed by them towards the members of their own community ; 
thus exhibiting the intensity of sectarian attachment, yet by 
the no less notorious and exemplary practice of the duties of 
universal benevolence, secured from the charge so commonly 
brought against it, of being narrow and exclusive. " How 
kind these Christians are to the poor and afflicted, without 
distinction of religion or country : but how they love each 
other !" 



v*26 AID? TO REFLECTION. 

Now combine with this the consideration before urged — 
the duty, I mean, and necessity of checking the superstitious 
abuse of the Baptismal rite : and I then ask, with confidence, 
in what way could the Church have exercised a sound dis- 
cretion more wisely, piously, or effectively, than by fixing, 
from among the several ends and purposes of Baptism, the 
outward ceremony to the purposes here mentioned ? How 
could the great body of Christians be more plainly instructed 
as to the true nature of all outward ordinances ? What can 
be conceived better calculated to prevent the ceremony from 
being regarded as other and more than a ceremony, if not 
the administration of the same on an object (yea, a dear and 
precious object) of spiritual duties, though the conscious sub- 
ject of spiritual operations and graces only by anticipation and 
in hope ; — a subject unconscious as a flower of the dew fal- 
ling on it, or the early rain, and thus emblematic of the myr- 
iads who (as in our Indian empire, and henceforward, I trust, 
in Africa) are temporally and even morally benefitted by the 
outward existence of Christianity, though as yet ignorant of 
its saving truth ! And yet, on the other hand, what more 
reverential than the application of this the common initiatory 
rite of the East sanctioned and appropriated by Christ — its 
application, I say, to the very subjects, whom he himself com- 
manded to be brought to him — the children in arms, respect- 
ing whom Jesus ivas much displeased ivith his disciples, 
who had rebuked those that brought them ! What more 
expressive of the true character of that originant yet generic 
stain, from which the Son of God, by his mysterious incar- 
nation and agony and death and resurrection, and by the 
Baptism of the Spirit come to cleanse the children of Adam, 
than the exhibition of the outward element to infants, free 
from and incapable of crime, in whom the evil principle was 
present only as potential being, and whose outward sem- 
blance represented the kingdom of Heaven ? And can it — 
to a man, who would hold himself deserving of anathema 
maranatha (1 Cor. xvi. 22.) if he did not love the Lord Je- 



ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 321 

Sits — can it be nothing to such a man, that the introduction 
and commendation of a new inmate, a new spiritual ward, to" 
the assembled brethren in Christ ( — and this, as I have shown 
above, was one purpose of the Baptismal ceremony) does in 
the Baptism of an infant recall our Lord's own presentation 
in the Temple on the eighth day after his birth ? Add to all 
these considerations the known fact of the frequent exposure 
and the general light regard of infants, at the time when In- 
fant Baptism is by the Baptists supposed to have been first 
ruled by the Catholic Church, not overlooking the humane 
and charitable motive, that influenced Cyprian's decision in 
its favour. And then make present to your imagination, and 
meditatively contemplate the still continuing tendency, the 
profitable, the beautiful effects, of this ordinance now and for 
so many centuries back, on the great mass of the population 
throughout Christendom — the softening, elevating exercise 
of faith and the conquest over the senses, while in the form 
of a helpless crying babe the presence, and the unutterable 
worth and value, of an immortal being made capable of ever- 
lasting bliss are solemnly proclaimed and carried home to 
the mind and heart of the hearers and beholders ! Nor will 
you forget the probable influence on the future education of 
the child, the opportunity of instructing and impressing the 
friends, relatives, and parents in their best and most docile 
mood. These are, indeed, the mollia tempora fandi. 

It is true, that by an unforeseen accident, and through the 
propensity of all zealots to caricature partial truth into total 
falsehood — it is too true, that a tree the very contrary in 
quality of that shown to Moses (Exod. xv. 25.) was after- 
wards cast into the sweet waters from this fountain, and 
made them like the waters of Marah, too bitter to be drunk. 
I allude to the Pelagian controversy, the perversion of the 
article of Original Sin by Augustine, and the frightful con- 
clusions which this durus pater infantum drew from the ar- 
ticle thus perverted. It is not, however, to ihe predecessors 
of this African, whoever they' were that authorised Paedo- 



328 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

Baptism, and at whatever period it first became general — it is 
not to the Chnrch at the time being, that these consequences 
are justly imputable. She had done her best to preclude 
every superstition, by allowing, in urgent cases any and eve- 
ry adult, man, and woman, to administer the ceremonial part, 
the outward rite, of Baptism : but reserving to the highest 
functionary of the Church (even to the exclusion of the co- 
presbyters) the more proper and spiritual purpose, namely, 
the declaration of repentance and belief, the free choice of 
Christ as his Lord, and the open profession of the Christian 
title by an individual in his own name and by his own delib- 
erate act. This office of religion, the essentially moral and 
spiritual nature of which could not be mistaken, this most 
solemn office the Bishop alone was to perform. 

Thus — as soon as the purposes of the ceremonial rite were 
by change of circumstances divided, that is, took place at dif- 
ferent periods of the believer's life — to the outward purposes, 
where the effect was to be produced on the consciousness of 
others, the Church continued to affix the outward rite ; while 
to the substantial and spiritual purpose, where the effect was 
to be produced on the individual's own mind, she gave it be- 
seeming dignity by an ordinance not figurative, but standing 
in the direct cause and relation of means to the end. 

In fine, there are two great purposes to be answered, each 
having its own subordinate purposes, and desirable conse- 
quences. The Church answers both, the Baptists one only. 
If, nevertheless, you would still prefer the union of the Bap- 
tismal rite with the Confirmation, and that the presentation 
of infants to the assembled Church had formed a separate in- 
stitution, avowedly prospective — I answer : first, that such 
for a long time and to a late period was my own judgment. 
But even then it seemed to me a point, as to which an in- 
difference would be less inconsistent in a lover of truth, than 
a zeal to separation in a professed lover of peace. And sec- 
ondly, I would revert to the history of the Reformation, and 
the calamitous accident of the Peasant's War : when the 



ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 3'29 

poor ignorant multitude, driven frantic by the intolerable op- 
pressions of their feudal lords, rehearsed all the outrages that 
were acted in our own times by the Parisian populace headed 
by Danton, Marat, and Robespierre ; and on the same out- 
rageous principles, and in assertion of the same rights of 
brutes to the subversion of all the duties of men. In our 
times, most fortunately for the interest of religion and morali- 
ty, or of their prudential substitutes at least, the name of Ja- 
cobin was every where associated with that of Atheist and 
Infidel. Or rather, Jacobinism and Infidelity were the two 
heads of the Revolutionary Geryon — -connatural misgrowths 
of the same monster-trunk. In the German convulsion, on 
the contrary, by a mere but most unfortunate accident, the 
same code of Caliban Jurisprudence, the same sensual and 
murderous excesses, were connected with the name of Ana- 
baptist. The abolition of magistracy, community of goods, 
the right of plunder, polygamy, and whatever else was fanat- 
ical, were comprised in the word Anabaptism. It is not to 
be imagined that the Fathers of the Preformation could, with- 
out a miraculous influence, have taken up the question of In- 
fant Baptism with the requisite calmness and freedom of spir- 
it. It is not to be wished, that they should have entered on 
the discussion. Nay, I will go farther. Unless the abolition 
of Infant Baptism can be shown to be involved in some fun- 
damental article of faith, unless the practice could be proved 
fatal or imminently perilous to salvation, the Reformers would 
not have been justified in exposing the yet tender and strug- 
gling cause of Protestantism to such certain and violent pre- 
judices as this innovation would have excited. Nothing less 
than the whole substance and efficacy of the Gospel Faith 
was the prize, which they had wrestled for and won ; but 
won from enemies still in the field, and on the watch to re- 
take, at all costs, the sacred treasure, and consign it once 
again to darkness and oblivion. If there be a time for all 
things, this was not the time for an innovation, that would 
and must have been followed by the triumph of the enemies 



330 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

of Scriptural Christanity, and the alienation of the govern-- 
ments that had espoused and protected it. 

Remember, I say this on the supposition of the question's 
not being what you do not pretend it to be, an essential of the 
Faith by which we are saved. But should it likewise be con- 
ceded that it is a disputable point — and that in point of fact 
it is and has been disputed by divines, whom no pious Chris- 
tian of any denomination will deny to have been faithful and 
eminent servants of Christ ; should it, I say, be likewise con- 
ceded that the question of Infant Baptism is a point, on which 
two Christians, who perhaps differ on this point only, may 
differ without giving just ground for impeaching the piety or 
competence of either ; in this case I am obliged to infer that 
the person who at any time can regard this difference as sing- 
ly warranting a seperation from a religious community, must 
think of schism under another point of view than that in 
which I have been taught to contemplate it by St. Paul in hi& 
Epistles to the Corinthians. 

Let me add a few words on a diversity of doctrine closely 
connected with this ; — the opinions of Doctors Mant and 
D'Oyly as opposed to those of the (so called) Evangelical 
clergy. "The Church of England (says Wall*) does not re- 



* Conference between two men that had doubts about Infant Baptism. — 
By W. Wall, Author of the History of Infant Baptism, and Vicar of Shore- 
ham in Kent. A very sensible little tract, and written in an excellent spir- 
it : but it failed, 1 confess, in satisfying my mind as to the existence of 
any decisive proofs or documents of Infant Baptism having- been an Apos- 
tolic usage, or specially intended in any part of the New Testament : though 
deducible generally from many passages, and in perfect accordance with 
the spirit of the w4iole. 

A mighty wrestler in the cause of spiritual religion and Gospel morality,, 
in whom more than in any other contemporary I seem to see the spirit of 
Luther revived, expressed to me his doubts whether we have aright to de- 
ny that an infant is capable of a spiritual influence. To such a man I 
could not feel justified in returning an answer ex tempore, or without hav- 
ing first submitted my convictions to a fresh revisal. I owe him, however, 
a deliberate answer ; and take this opportunity of discharging the debt. 

The objection supposes and assumes the very point which is denied, or 



ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. ^31 

quire assent and consent " to either opinion " in order to lay 
communion." But I will suppose the person and minister : 
but minister of a Church which has expressly disclaimed all 
pretence to infallibility ; a Church which in the construction 
■of its Liturgy and Articles is known to have worded certain 
passages for the purpose of rendering them subscribable by 
both A and Z — that is, the opposite parties as to the points 
in controversy. I suppose this person's convictions those 
of Z, and that out of five passages there are three, the 
more natural and obvious sense of which, is in his favor ; 
and two of which, though not absolutely precluding a dif- 
ferent sense, yet the more probable interpretation is in 
favor of A, that is, of those who do not consider the 
Baptism of an infant as prospective, but hold it to be an opus 



at lca<;t disputed — namely, that lnfa»t Baptism is specially enjoined in the 
Scriptures. If an express passage to this purport had existed in the New 
Testament — the other passages, which evidently imply a spiritual opera- 
tion under the condition of a preceding spiritual acton the part of the per- 
son baptized, remaining as now — then indeed, as the only way of removing 
the apparent contradiction, it might he allowable to call on the Antipaido- 
baptist to prove the negative — namety, that an infant a week old is not a 
subject capable or susceptible of spiritual agency, — And, vice versa, should 
it !;e made known to us, that infants are not without reilection and self-con- 
sciousness — then, doubtless, we should be entitled to infer that they were 
capable of a spiritual operation, and consequently of that which is signified 
in the Baptismal rite administered to adults. But what does this prove for 
those, who (as D. D. Slant and D'Oyly) not only cannot show, but who do 
not themselves profess to believe, the self-consciousness ofa new-born babe, 
but who rest the defence of Infant Baptism on the assertion, that God was 
pleased to affix the performance of this rite to his offer of salvation, as the 
indispensable, though arbitrary, condition of the infant's saivability ? — Ab 
kings in former ages, when they conferred lands in perpetuity, would some- 
timer, as the condition of the tenure, exact from the beneficiary a hav ]., or 
Dome trifling ceremony, as the putting on or ofFof their sandals, or what- 
ever else royal caprice or the whim of the moment might suggest. But 
you, honored Irving, are as little disponed, as myself, to frvor such doc- 
trine '. 

Friend pure of heart, and fervent ' we have learnt 

A different lore. We may not. thus profane 
The idea and name of Him whose absolute will 
I» r^nson, truth «npr»me, essential order ' 



332 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

operans et in prcesenti. Then I say, that if such a person 
regards these two sentences or single passages as obliging or 
warranting him to abandon the flock entrusted to his charge, 
and either to join such as are the avowed enemies of the 
Church on the double ground of its particular constitution and 
of its being an establishment, or to set up a separate church 
for himself — I cannot avoid the conclusion, that either his 
conscience is morbidly sensitive in one speck to the exhaus- 
tion of the sensibility in a far larger portion ; or that he must 
have discovered some mode, beyond the reach of my conjec- 
tural powers, of interpreting the Scriptures enumerated in 
the following excerpt from the popular tract before cited, in 
which the writer expresses an opinion, to whi°,h I assent with 
my whole heart : namely, 

" That all Christians in the world that hold the same fun- 
damentals ought to make one Church, though differing in les- 
ser opinions ; and that the sin, the mischief, and danger to the 
souls of men, that divide into those many sects and parties 
among us, does (for the most of them) consist not so much in 
the opinions themselves, as in their dividing and separating 
for them. And in support of this tenet, I will refer you to 
some plain places of Scripture, which if you please now to 
peruse, I will be silent the while. See what our Saviour 
himself says, John x. 16. John xvi. 11. And what the primi- 
tive Christians practised, Acts. ii. 46. and iv. 32. And what 
St. Paul says, 1 Cor. i. 10, 11, 12, and 2, 3, 4, also the 
whole 12th chapter: Eph. ii. 17, etc. to the end. Where 
the Jewish and Gentile Christians are showed to be one 
body, one household, one temple fitly framed together : and 
yet these were of different opinions in several matters. — 
Likewise chap. iii. 6. iv. 1 — 13. Phil. ii. 1, 2, where he 
uses the most solemn adjurations to this purpose. But I 
would more especially recommend to you the reading of Gal. 
v. 20, 21. Phil. iii. 15, 16. The 14th chapter to the Ro- 
mans, and part of the 15th to verse 7, and also Bom. xv. 
17. 



CONCLUSION. 333 

Are not these passages plain, full, and earnest ? Do you 
find any of the controverted points to be determined by Scrip- 
ture in words nigh so plain or pathetic ?" 

Marginal note written (in 1816J in a copy of Wall's work. 

This and the two following pages are excellent. If I addressed the 
ministers recently seceded, I would first prove from Scripture and reason 
the justness of their doctrines concerning Baptism and conversion. 2. I 
would show, that even in respect of the Prayer-book, Homilies, &c. of the 
Church of England, taken as a whole, their opponents were comparatively 
as ill off as themselves, if not worse, f!. That the few mistakes or incon- 
venient phrases of the Baptismal Service did not impose on the conscience 
the necessit}^ of resigning the pastoral office. 4. That even if they did, 
this would by no means justify schism from lay-membership: or else there 
could be no schism except from an immaculate and infallible Church. — 
Now, as our Articles have declared that no Church is or ever was such, 
it would follow that there is no such sin as that of schism, that is, that St. 
Paul wrote falsely or idly. 5. That the escape through the channel of dis- 
sent is from the frying-pan to the fire — or, to use a less worn and vulvar 
simile, the escnjic ef a leech from a glass-jar of wafer into the naked and 
open air. Rut never, never, would I in one breath allow my Church to be 
fallible, and in the next contend for her absolute freedom from all error — 
neverconfine inspiration and perfect truth to the Scriptures, and then scold 
for the perfect truth of each and every word in the Pra3'cr-book. Enough 
for me, if in my heart of hearts, free from all fear of man and all lust of pre- 
ferment, I believe (as I do) the Church of England to be the most Apostol- 
ic Church ; that its doctrines and ceremonies contain nothing dangerous 
to righteousness or salvation ; and tint the imperfections in its Liturgy are 
spots indeed, but spots on the sun, which impede neither its light nor it* 
heat, so as to prevent the good seed from growing in a good soil and pro- 
ducing fruits of redemption. 



CONCLUSION. 

I am not so ignorant of the temper and tendency of the age 
in which I live, as either to be unprepared for the sort of re- 
marks which the literal interpretation of the Evangelist will 
call forth, or to attempt an answer 1o them. Visionary ra- 
vings, obsolete whimsies, transcendental trash, and the like, 1 
leave to pass at the price current among those who are wil- 



334 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

ling to receive abusive phrases as substitutes for argument. — 
Should any suborner of annymous criticism have engaged 
some literary bravo or buffoon beforehand to vilify this work, 
as in former instances, I would give a friendly hint to the 
operative critic that he may compile an excellent article for 
the occasion, and with very little trouble., out of Warburton's 
Tract on Grace and the Spirit, and the Preface to the same. 
There is, however, one objection, which will so often be 
heard from men, whose talents and reputed moderation must 
give a weight to their words, that I owe it both to my own 
character and to the interests of my readers, not to leave it 
unnoticed. The charge will probably be worded in this way: 
— There is nothing new in all this ! (as if novelty were any 
merit in questions of revealed religion !) It is mysticism, all 
taken out of William Law, after he had lost his senses, poor 
man ! in brooding over the visions of a delirious German cob- 
bler, Jacob Belimen. 

Of poor Jacob Behmen I have delivered my sentiments at 
large in another work. Those who have condescended to 
look into his writings must know that his characteristic errors 
are ; first, the mistaking the accidents and peculiarities of 
his own overwrought mind for realities and modes of think- 
ing common to all minds : and secondly, tfce confusion of na- 
ture, that is, the active powers communicated to matter, with 
God the Creator. And if the same persons have done more 
than merely looked into the present volume, they must have 
seen, that to eradicate, and, if possible, to preclude both the 
one and the other, stands prominent among its avowed ob- 
jects. 

Of William Law's Works I am acquainted with the Seri- 
rious Call ; and besides this I remember to have read a small 
Tract on Prayer, if I mistake not, as I easily may, it being at 
least six-and-twenty years since I saw it. He may in this or 
in other tracts have quoted the same passages from the fourth 
Gospel which I have done. But surely this affords no pre- 
sumption that my conclusions are the same with his ; still 



CONCLUSION 335 

less, that they are drawn from the same premises ; and least 
of all, that they were adopted from his writings. Whether 
Law has used the phrase, assimilation by faith, I know not ; 
but I know that I should expose myself to a just charge of an 
idle parade of my reading, if I recapitulated the tenth part of 
the authors, ancient and modern, Romish and Reformed, 
from Law to Clemens Alexandrinus and Irenseus, in whose 
works the same phrase occurs in the same sense. And after 
all, on such a subject how worse than childish is the whole 
dispute ! 

Is the fourth Gospel authentic ? And is the interpretation 
I have given true or false ? These are the only questions 
which a wise man would put, or a Christian be anxious to 
answer. I not only believe it to be the true sense of 
the texts ; but I assert that it is the only true, rational, and 
even tolerable sense. And this position alone I conceive 
myself interested in defending. I have studied with an open 
and fearless spirit the attempts of sundry learned critics of 
the Continent to invalidate the authenticity of this Gospel, 
before and since Eichhorn's Vindication. The result has- 
been a clearer assurance and (as far as this was possible) a 
yet deeper conviction of the genuineness of all the writings: 
which the Church has attributed to this Apostle. That those, 
who have formed an opposite conclusion, should object to 
the use ot expressions which they had ranked among the 
most obvious marks of spuriousness, follows as a matter of 
course. But that men, who with a clear and cloudless assent 
receive the sixth chapter of this Gospel as a faithful, nay, in- 
spired record of an actual discourse, should take offence at 
the repetition of words which the Redeemer himself, in the 
perfect foreknowledge that they would confirm the disbeliev- 
ing, alienate the unsteadfast, and transcend the present ca- 
pacity even of his own elect, had chosen as the most appro- 
priate ; and which, after the most decisive proofs that they 
were misinterpreted by the greater number of his hearers, 
and not understood by any, he nevertheless repeated with 



336 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

stronger emphasis and without comment as the only appro- 
priate symbols of the great truth he was declaring, and to re- 
alize which s/sWo tfapg ; * — that in their own discourses these 
men should hang back from all express reference to these 
words, as if they were afraid or ashamed of them, though the 
earliest recorded ceremonies and liturgical forms of the prim- 
itive Church are absolutely inexplicable, except in connexion 
with this discourse, and with the mysterious and spiritual, 
not allegorical and merely ethical, import of the same ; and 
though this import is solemnly and in the most unequivocal 
terms asserted and taught by their own Church, even in her 
Catechism, or compendium of doctrines necessary for all her 
members ; — this I may, perhaps, understand ; but this I am 
not able to vindicate or excuse. 

There is, however, one opprobrious phrase which it may 
be profitable for my young readers that I should explain, 
namely, Mysticism. And for this purpose I will quote a sen- 
tence or two from a dialogue which had my prescribed limits 
permitted, I should have attached to the present work ; but 
tvhich with an Essayf on the Church, as instituted by Christ, 
and as an establishment of the State, and a series of Letters, 
jn the right and the superstitious use and estimation of the 
Bible, will appear in a small volume by themselves, should 
the reception given to the present volume encourage or per- 
mit the publication. 



* Of which our, he icas made flesh, is a very inadequate translation. — - 
The Church of England in this as in other doctrinal points has preserved 
the golden mean between the superstitious reverence of the Romanists, 
and the avowed contempt of the Sectarians, for the writings of the Fa- 
thers, and the authority and uninpeached traditions of the Church during 
the first three or four centuries. And how, consistently with this honour- 
able characteristic of our Church, a minister of the same could, on the Sac- 
ramentary scheme now in fashion, return even a plausible answer to Ar- 
nauld's great work on Transubstantiation, (not without reason the boast of 
the Romish Church J exceeds my powers of conjecture. 

t See the Church and State, 3rd edit. 



Conclusion 337 

MYSTICS AND MYSTICISM 

Antinous. — "What do you call Mysticism ? And do you 
use the word in a good or bad sense ?" 

Nous. — "In the latter only ; as far, at least as we are now 
concerned with it. When a man refers to inward feelings 
and experiences, of which mankind at large are not conscious, 
as evidences of the truth of any opinion — such a man I call 
a Mystic. : and the grounding of any theory or belief on acci- 
dents and anomalies of individual sensations or fancies, and 
the use of peculiar terms invented, or perverted from their 
ordinary significations, for the purpose of expressing these 
idiosyncracies and pretended facts of interior consciousness, 
I name Mysticism. Where the error consists simply in the 
Mystic's attaching to these anomalies of his individual tem- 
perament the character of reality, and in receiving them as 
permanent truths, having a subsistence in the divine mind; 
though revealed to himself alone ; but entertains this persua- 
sion without demanding or expecting the same faith in his 
neighbours — I should regard it as a species of enthusiasm, 
always indeed to be deprecated, but yet capable of co-exist- 
ing with many excellent qualities both of head and heart. 
But when the Mystic, by ambition or still meaner passions, or 
(as sometimes is the case) by an uneasy and self-doubting 
state of mind which seeks confirmation in outward sympathy, 
is led to impose his faith, as a duty, on mankind generally ! 
and when with such views he asserts that the same experiences 
would be vouchsafed, the same truths revealed, to every man 
but for his secret wickedness and unholy will ; — such a Mystic 
is a fanatic, and in certain states of the public mind a danger- 
ous member of society. And most so in those ages and coun- 
tries in which fanatics of elder standing are allowed to perse- 
cute the fresh competitor. For under these predicaments, Mys- 
ticism, though originating in the singularities of an individual 
nature, and therefore essentially anomalous, is nevertheless 
highly contagious. Tt is apt to collect a swarm and cluster 

43 



338 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

circumfana, around the new fane ; and therefore merits the 
name of fanaticism, or as the Germans say, Schivarmerey , 
that is, swarm-making." 

We will return to the harmless species, the enthusiastic 
Mystics ; — a species that may again be sub-divided into two 
ranks, and it will not be other than germane to the subject, 
if I endeavour to describe them in a sort of allegory or para- 
ble. Let us imagine a poor pilgrim benighted in a wilder- 
ness ordesart, and pursuing his way in the starless dark with 
a lantern in his hand. Chance or his happy genius leads him 
to an oasis or natural garden, such as in the creations of 
my youthful fancy I supposed Enos,* the child of Cain, to 
have found. And here, hungry and thirsty, the way-wearied 
man rests at a fountain ; and the taper of his lantern throws 
its light on an over-shadowing tree, a boss of snow-white 
blossoms, through which the green and growing fruits peep- 
ed, and the ripe golden fruitage glowed. Deep, vivid, and 



* Will the reader forgive me if I attempt at^once to illustrate and relieve 
the subject by annexing the first stanza of the poem composed in the same 
year in which I wrote the Ancient Mariner and the first book of Christabel 2 

" Encinctur'd with a twine of leaves, 

That leafy twine his only dress ! 

A lovely boy was plucking fruits 

In a moonlight wilderness. 

The moon was bright, the air was free. 

And fruits and flowers together grew 

On many a shrub and many a tree. 

And all put on a gentle hue, 

Hanging in the shadowy air 

Like a picture rich and rare. 

It was a climate where, they say, 

The night is more belov'd than day. 

But who that beauteous boy beguil'd, 

That beauteous boy, to linger here ? 

Alone, by night, a little child, 

In place so silent and so wild — 

Has he no friend, no loving mother near?" 

Wanderings of Cain. 
Poet Works, II. p. 100 



i 0NCLU8I0N. 339 

faithful are the impressions, which the lovely imagery com- 
prised within the scanty circle of light, makes and leaves on 
his memory. But scarcely has he eaten of the fruits and 
drunk of the fountain, ere scared by the roar and howl from 
the desart he hurries forward : and as he passes with hasty 
steps through grove and glade, shadows and imperfect be- 
holdings and vivid fragments of things distinctly seen blend 
with the past and present shapings of his brain. Fancy modifies 
sight. His dreams transfer their forms to real objects ; and 
these lend a substance and an outness to his dreams. Appa- 
ritions greet him ; and when at a distance from this enchant- 
ed land, and on a different track, the dawn of day discloses 
to him a caravan, a troop of his fellow-men, his memory, 
which is itself lialf fancy, is interpolated afresh by every at- 
tempt to recall, connect, and piece out his recollections. His 
narration is received as a madman's talc. He shrinks from 
the rude laugh and contemptous sneer, and retires into him- 
self. Yet the craving for sympathy, strong in proportion to 
the intensity of his convictions, impels him to unbosom him- 
self to abstract auditors; and the poor quietest becomes a 
penman, and, all too poorly stocked for the writer's trade, he 
borrows his phrases and figures from the only writings to 
which he lias had access, the sacred books of his religion. 
And thus I shadow out the enthusiast Mystic of the first sort ; 
at the head of which stands the illuminated Teutonic thcoso- 
pher and shoemaker, honest Jacob Behmen, born near Gorlitz, 
in Upper Lusatia, in the 17th of our Elizabeth's reign, and 
who died in the 2:2nd of her successor's. 

To delineate a Mystic of the second and higher order, we 
need only endow our pilgrim with equal gifts of nature, but 
these developed and displayed by all the aids and arts of ed- 
ucation and favourable fortune. He is en his way to the 
Mecca of his ancestral and national faith, with a well-guarded 
and numerous procession of merchants ni\d fellow-pilgrims, 
on the established (rack. At the close of day the caravan 
has halted : the full moon rises on the desart : and he strays 



340 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

forth alone, out of sight but to no unsafe distance ; and chance 
leads him. too, to the same oasis or islet of verdure onthe sea 
of sand. He wanders at liesure in its maze of beauty and 
sweetness, and thrids his way through the odorous and flower- 
ing thickets into open spots of greenery, and discovers statues 
and memorial characters, grottos, and refreshing caves. But 
the moonshine, the imaginative poesy of Nature, spreads its 
soft shadowy charm over all, conceals distances, and magnifies 
heights, and modifies relations ; and fills up vacuities with its 
own whiteness, counterfeiting substance ; and where the dense 
shadows lie, makes solidity imitate hollowness'; and gives to all 
objects a tender visionary hue and softening, Interpret the 
moonlight and the shadows as the peculiar genius and sensi- 
bility of the individual's own spirit : and here you have the 
other sort : a Mystic, an enthusiast of a nobler breed — a 
Fenelon. But the residentiary, or the frequent visitor of the 
favored spot, who has scanned its beauties by steady day- 
light, and mastered its true proportions and lineaments, he 
will discover that both pilgrims have indeed been there. He 
will know, that the delightful dream, which the latter tells, is 
a dream of truth ; and that even in the bewildered tale of 
the former there is truth mingled with the dream. 

But the source, the spring-head, of the charges which I anti- 
cipate,, lies deep. Materialism, conscious and avowed Materi- 
alism, is in ill repute : and a confessed Materialist therefore a 
rare character. But if the faith be ascertained by the fruits : 
if the predominant, though most often unsuspected, persua- 
sion is to be learnt from the influences, under which the 
thoughts and affections of the man move and take their direc- 
tion ; I must reverse the position. Only not all are Materialists. 
Except a few individuals, and those for the most part of a sin- 
gle sect: every one. who calls himself a christtan holds him- 
self to have a soul as well as a body. He distinguishes mind 
from matter, the subject and substance are words of kindred 
roots,nay, little else than equivalent terms, yet nevertheless it is 
exclusively to sensible objects, to bodies, to modifications of 



CONCLUSION. 341 

matter, that he habitually attaches the attributes of reality, of 
substance. Real and tangible, substantial and material, are 
synonymes for him. He never indeed asks himself, what he 
means by mind ? But if he did, and tasked himself to return 
an honest answer — as to what, at least, he had hitherto meant 
by it — he would find, that he had described it by negatives, 
as the opposite of bodies, for example, as a somewhat oppo- 
sed to solidity, to visibility, and the like, as if you could ab- 
stract the capacity of a vessel, and concieve of it as a some- 
what by itself, and then give to the emptiness the properties 
of containing, holding, being entered, and so forth. In short 
though the proposition would perhaps be angrily denied in 
words, yet in fact he thinks of his mind, as a property, or 
accident of a something else, that he calls a soul or spirit : 
though the very same difficulties must recur, the moment he 
should attempt to establish the difference. For either this 
soul or spirit is nothing but a thinner body, a finer mass of 
matter : or the attribute of self-subsistency vanishes from 
the soul on the same grounds, on which it is refused to the 
mind. 

I am persuaded, however, that the dogmatism of the Cor-, 
puscular School, though it still exerts an influence on men's 
notions and phrases, has received a mortal blow from the in- 
creasingly dynamic spirit of the physical sciences now high- 
est in public estimation. And it may safely be predicted that 
the results will extend beyond the intention of those, who 
are gradually effecting this revolution. It is not chemistry 
alone that will be indebted to the genius of Davy, Oersted, 
and thair compeers : and not as the founder of physiology 
and philosophic anatomy alone, will mankind love and revere 
the name )f John Hunter. These men have not only taught, 
they have compelled us to admit, that the immediate objects 
of our senses, or rather the grounds of the visibility and tan- 
gibility of all objects of sense, bear the same relation and sim- 
ilar proportion to the intelligible object — that is, to the ob- 
ject which we actually mean when we say, "It is such or 



342 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

such a thing," or "I have seen this or that," — as the paper, 
ink, and differently combined straight and curved lines of an 
edition of Homer bear to what we understand by the words, 
Iliad and Odyssey. Nay, nothing would be more easy than 
so to construct the paper, ink, painted capitals, and the like, 
of a printed disquisition on the eye, or the muscles and cel- 
lular texture (that is, the flesh) of the human body, as to 
bring together every one of the sensible and ponderable 
stuffs or elements, that are sensuously perceived in the eye 
itself, or in the flesh itself. Carbon and nitrogen, oxygen 
and hydrogen, sulphur, phosphorus, and one or two metals 
and metallic bases, constitute the whole. It cannot be these, 
therefore, that we mean by an eye, by our body. But per- 
haps it may be a particular combination of these ? But here 
comes a question : In this term do you or do you not include 
the principle, the operating cause, of the combination ? If 
not, then detach this eye from the body. Look steadily at 
it — as it might lie on the marble slab of a dissecting room. 
Say it were the eye of a murderer, a Bellingham : or the eye 
of a murdered patriot, a Sydney ! — Behold it, handle it, with 
its various accompaniments or constituent parts, of tendon, 
ligament, membrane, blood-vessel, gland, humors; its nerves 
of sense, of sensation, and of motion. Alas ! all these names 
like that of the organ itself, are so many anachronisms, figures 
of speech, to express that which has been : as when the guide 
points with his finger to a heap of stones, and tells the travel- 
ler, "That is Babylon, or Persepolis." — Is this cold jelly the 
light of the body? Is this the micranthropos in the marvel- 
lous microcosm ? Is this what you mean when you well define 
the eye as the telescope and the mirror of the soul, the seat 
and agent of an almost magical power ? 

Pursue the same inquisition with every other part of the 
body, whether integral or simple ingredient ; and let a Ber- 
zelius or a Hatchett be your interpreter, and demonstrate to 
you what it is that in each actually meets your senses. And 
when you have heard the scanty catalogue, ask yourself if 



CONCLUSION. 



34 3 



these are indeed the living flesh, the blood of life ? Or not far 
rather — I speak of what, as a man of common sense, you 
really do, nol what, as a philosopher, you ought to believe — 
is it not, I say, far rather the distinct and individualized agen- 
cy that by the given combinations utters and bespeaks its 
presence? Justly and with strictest propriety of language 
may I say, speaks. It is to the coarseness of our senses, or 
rather to the defect and limitation of our percipient faculty, 
that the visible object appears the same even for a moment. 
The characters, which I am now shaping on this paper, abide. 
Not only the forms remain the same, but the particles of the 
coloring stuff are fixed, and, for an indefinite period at least, 
remain the same. But the particles that constitute the size, 
the visibility of an organic structure, are in perpetual flux. 
They are to the combining and constitutive power as the 
pulses of air to the voice of a discourser ; or one who 
sings a roundelay. The same words may be repeated ; but 
in each second of time the articulated air hath passed away, 
and each act of articulation appropriates and gives momen- 
tary form to a new and other portion. As the column of 
blue smoke from a cottage chimney in the breathless sum- 
mer noon, or the stedfast-seeming cloud on the edge point of 
a hill in the driving air-current, which momently condensed 
and recomposed is the common phantom of a thousand suc- 
cessors ; — such is the flesh, which our bodily eyes transmit to 
us ; which our palates taste ; which our hands touch. 

But perhaps the material particles possess this combining 
power by inherent reciprocal attractions, repulsions, and elec- 
tive affinities ; and are themselves the joint artists of their 
own combinations ? I will not reply, though well I might, 
that this would be to solve one problem by another, and 
merely to shift the mystery. It will be sufficient to remind 
the thoughtful querist, that even herein consists the essential 
difference, the contra-distinction, of an organ from a ma- 
chine ; that not only the characteristic shape is evolved from 
the invisible central power, but the material mass itself is 



344 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 

acquired by assimilation. The germinal power of the plant 
transmutes the fixed air and the elementary base of water 
into grass or leaves ; and on these the organific principle in 
the ox or the elephant exercises an alchemy still more stu- 
penduous. As the unseen agency weaves its magic eddies, 
the foliage becomes indifferently the bone and its marrow, 
the pulpy brain, or the solid ivory. That, what you see is 
blood, is flesh, is itself the work, or shall I say, the translu- 
cence, of the invisible energy, which soon surrenders or aban- 
dons them to inferior powers, (for there is no pause nor chasm 
in the activities of nature) which repeat a similar metamor- 
phosis according to their kind ; — these are not fancies, con- 
jectures, or even hypotheses, but facts ; to deny which is 
impossible, not to reflect on which is ignominious. And we 
need only reflect on them with a calm and silent spirit to 
learn the utter emptiness and unmeaningness of the vaunted 
Mechanico-corpuscular philosophy, with both its twins, Ma- 
terialism on the one hand, and Idealism, rightlier named 
subjective Idolism, on the other : the one obtruding on us a 
world of spectres and apparitions ; the other a mazy dream. 

Let the Mechanic or Corpuscular scheme, which in its ab- 
soluteness and strict consistency was fuse introduced by 
Des Cartes, be judged by the results. By its fruits shall it 
be known. 

In order to submit the various phmxomma of moving bo- 
dies to geometrical construction, we are under the necessity 
of abstracting from corporeal substance all its positive pro- 
perties, and obliged to consider bodies as differing from equal 
portions of space *only by figure and mobility. And as a 

* Such is the 'conception of body in Des Cartes' own system. Bod}' is 
every where confounded with matter, and might in the Cartesian sense be 
defined space or extension, with the attribute of visibility. As Des Car- 
tes at the same time zealously asserted the existence of intelligential be- 
ings, the reality and independent self-subsistence of the soul, Berkeleyan- 
isra or Spinosismwas the immediate and necessary consequence. Assume 
a plurality of self-subsisting souls, and we have Berkeleyanism ; assume 
one only (imam el unicam substantiam), and you have Spinosism, that is. 



CONCLUSION. 



345 



fiction of science, it would be difficult to overvalue this in- 
vention. It possesses the same merits in relation to geome- 
try that the atomic theory has in relation to algebraic calcu- 
lus. But in contempt of common sense, and in direct oppo- 
sition to the express declarations of the inspired historian 
(Gen. i.), and to the tone and spirit of the Scriptures through- 
out, Des Cartes proprounded it as a truth of fact : and in- 
stead of a world created and filled with productive forces by 
the almighty Fiat, left a lifeless machine whirled about by 
the dust of its own grinding : as if death could come from the 
living fountain of life ; nothingness and phantom from the 
plenitude of reality, the absoluteness of creative will ! 

Holy ! Holy ! Holy ! let me be deemed mad by all men, 
if such be thy ordinance : but, O ! from such madness save 
and preserve me, my God ! 

When, however, after a short interval, the genius of Kep- 



th'e assertion of one infinite self-subsistent, with the two attributes of think- 
ing and appearing. Cogitatio infinita sine centro, et omniformis opparitio. 
How far the Newtonian vis inertia (interpreted any otherwise than as an 
arbitrary term — x y z, to represent the unknown but necessary supplement 
or integration ofthe Cartesian notion of body) lias patched up the flaw, I 
leave for more competent judges to decide. But should any one of my 
readers feel an interest in the speculative principles of natural philosophy, 
and should be master of the German language, I warmly recommend for his 
perusal the earliest known publication ofthe great founder of the Critical 
Philosophy, (written in the twenty-second year of his age !) on the then en<rer 
controversy between the Leibnitzian and the French and English Mathe. 
maticians, respecting the living forces — Gedanken run dry wakren Schtttz- 
ung der lebendigen Krafts : 1747 — in which Kant demonstrates the right 
reasoning to be with the latter; but the truth of the fact, the evidence of 
experience, with the former; and gives the explanation, namely : body, or 
corporeal nature, is something else and more than geometrical extension, 
even with the addition of a vis inertia. And Leibnitz, with the Bernouil- 
lis, erred in the attempt to demonstrate geometrically a problem not sus- 
ceptible of geometrical construction. — This tract, with the succeeding 
Himmcls-System, may with propriety be placed, after the Principia of New- 
ton, among the striking instances of early genius ;. and as the first product 
ofthe dynamic philosophy in the physical sciences, from the time, at lenst, 
of Giordano Bruno, whom the idolaters burned for an Atheist, at Rome, in 
thr vear 1600— See The Friend, vol i. p. 151—155 3d edif 
44 



346 



AIDS TO REFLECTION. 



Ier expanded and organized in the soul of Newton, and there 
(if I may hazard so bold an expression) refining itself into an 
almost celestial clearness, had expelled the Cartesian vorti- 
ces ;* then the necessity of an active power, of positive for- 
ges present in the material universe, forced itself on the con- 
viction. For as a law without a lawgiver is a mere abstrac- 
tion ; so a law without an agent to realize it, a constitution 
without an abiding executive, is, in fact, not a law but an idea. 
In the profound emblem of the great tragic poet, it is the 
powerless Prometheus fixed on a barren rock. And what 
was the result ? How was this necessity provided for ? — 
God himself — my hand trembles as I write ! Rather, then 
let me employ the word, which the religious feeling, in its 
perplexity, suggested as the substitute — the Deity itself wa3 
declared to be the real agent, the actual gravitating power I 
The law and the law-giver were identified. God (says Dr. 
Priestly) not only does, but is every thing. Jupiter est quod- 
cunque vides. And thus a system, which commenced by 
excluding all life and immanent activity from the visible uni- 
verse, and evacuating the natural world of all nature, ended 
by substituting the Deity, and reducing the Creator to a mere 
anima mundi : a scheme that has no advantage over Spi- 
nosism but its inconsistency, which does indeed make it suit 
a certain order of intellects, who, like the pleuronecce (or fiat 
fish) in ichthiology which have both eyes on the same side, 



* For Newton's own doubtfully suggested ether, or most subtle fluid, a» 
the ground and immediate agent in the phcenomcna of universal gravitation, 
was either not adopted or soon abandoned by his disciples ; not only as in- 
troducing, against his own cannons of right reasoning, an ens imaginarium 
into physical science, asuffiction in the place of a legitimate supposition : 
but because the substance (assuming it to exist) must itself form part of the 
problem which it was meant to solve. Merntime Leibnitz's pre-establish- 
ed harmony, which originated in Spinosa found no acceptance ; and, lastly, 
the notion of a corpuscular substance, with properties put into it, like a 
pincushion hidden by the pins, could pass with the unthinking only for any 
thing more than, a confession of ignorance, or technical terms expressing 
a hiatus of scientific insight 



CONCLUSION. 347 

never see but half of a subject at one time, forgetting the 
one before they get to the other are sure not to detect any 
inconsistency between them. 

And what has been the consequence ? An increasing un- 
willingness to contemplate the Supreme Being in his person- 
al attributes : and thence a distaste to all the peculiar doc- 
trines of the Christian Faith, the Trinity, the Incarnation of 
the Son of God, and redemption. The young and ardent, 
ever too apt to mistake the inward triumph in the detection of 
error for a positive love of truth, are among the first and most 
frequent victims to this epidemic fastidium. Alas ! even 
the sincerest seekers after light are not safe from the conta- 
gion. Some have I known, constitutionally religious — I speak 
feelingly ; for I speak of that which for a brief period was 
my own state — who under this unhealthful influence have 
been so estranged from the heavenly Father, the living God, 
as even to shrink from the personal pronouns as applied to 
the Deity. But many do I know, and yearly meet with, in 
whom a false and sickly taste co-operates with the prevailing 
fashion : many, who find the God of Abraham, Isaac, and 
Jacob, far too real, too substantial ; who feel it more in har- 
mony with their indefinite sensations 

To worship nature in the hill and valley, 
Not knowing what they love : — 

and (to use the language, but not the sense or purpose, of the 
great poet of our age) would fain substitute for the Jehovah, 
of their Bible 

A sense sublime 
Of something far mo interfused, 

Whose dwelling is tl ing suns, 

And the round ocean and the living air ; 
A motion and a spirit, that impels 
All thinking things, all ol I ught, 

A -id rolls through all things ! 

WoDSWORTH, 



And this from having been educated to understand thcdivi 



nr 



348 AIDS TO KE ELECTION. 

omnipresence in any sense rather than the only safe and le- 
gitimate one, the presence of all things to God ! 

Be it, however, that the number of such men is compara- 
tively small ! And be it (as in fact it often is) but a brief 
stage, a transitional state, in the process of intellectual 
growth ! Yet among a numerous and increasing" class of 
the higher and middle ranks, there is an inward withdrawing 
from the life and personal being of God, a turning of the 
thoughts exclusively to the so-called physical attributes, to 
the omnipresence in the counterfeit form of ubiquity, to the 
immensity, the infinity, the immutability ; — the attributes of 
space with a notion of power as their substratum, — a Fate, 
in short, not a moral creator and governor ! Let intelligence 
be imagined, and wherein does the conception of God differ 
essentially from that of gravitation (conceived as the cause of 
gravity) in the understanding of those, who represent the 
Deity not- only as a necessary but as a necessitated being ; 
those, for whom justice is but a scheme of general laws ; and 
holiness, and the divine hatred of sin, yea and sin itself, are 
words without meaning, or accommodations to a rude and 
barbarous race ? Hence, I more than fear the prevailing 
taste for books of natural theology, physico-theology, demon- 
strations of God from nature, evidences of Christianity, and 
the like. Evidences of Christianity ! I am weary of the 
word. Make a man feel the want of ; rouse him, if you can, 
to the self-knowledge of his need of it ; and you may safely 
trust it to its own evidence, — rememberiug only the express 
declaration of Christ himself : No man cometh to me, un- 
less the Father leadeth him ! Whatever more is desirable 
— I speak now with reference to Christians generally, and 
not to professed students of theology — may, in my judgment, 
be far more safely and profitably taught, without controversy 
or the supposition of infidel antagonists, in the form of Eccle- 
siastical history. 

The last fruit of the Mechanico-corpuscular philosophy, 
say rather of the mode and direction of feeling and thinking 



CONCLUSION. 349 

produced by it on the educated class of society ; or that re- 
sult, which as more immediately connected with my present 
theme I have reserved for the last — is the habit of attaching 
all our conceptions and feelings, and of applying all the words 
and phrases expressing reality, to the objects of the senses : 
more accurately speaking, to the images and sensations by 
which their presence is made known to us. Now I do not 
hesitate to assert, that it was one of the great purposes of 
Christianity, and included in the process of our redemption, 
to arouse and emancipate the soul from this debasing slavery 
to the outward senses, to awaken the mind to the true crite- 
ria of reality, namely, permenance, power, will manifested 
in act, and truth operating as life. My ivords, said Christ, 
are spirit : and they (that is, the spiritual powers expressed 
by them) are truth ; — that is, very being. For this end our 
Lord, who came from heaven to take captivity captive, chose 
the words and names, that designate the familiar yet most im- 
portant objects of sense, the nearest and most concerning 
things and incidents of corporeal nature : — water, flesh, blood, 
birth, bread ! But he used them in senses, that could not 
without absurdity be supposed to respect the mere phenome- 
na, water, flesh, and the like, in senses that by no possibility 
could apply to the colour, figure, specific mode of touch or 
taste produced on ourselves, and by which we are made 
aware of the presence of the things, and understand them — 
res, quce sub apparitiunibus istis statuendte sunt. And 
this awful recalling of the drowsed soul from the dreams and 
phantom world of sensuality to actual reality, — how has it 
been evaded ! These words, that were spirit, — these myste- 
ries, which even the Apostles must wait for the Paraclete, in 
order to comprehend, — these spiritual things which can only 
be spiritually discerned, — were mere metaphors, figures of 
speech, oriental hyperboles ! " All this means only morali- 
ty !" Ah ! how far nearer to the truth would these men 
have been, had they said that morality means all this ! 
The effect, however, has been most injurious to the best 



350 AIDS TO KKFLECT10N. 

interests of oar Universities, to our incomparably constituted 
Church, and even to our national character. The few who 
have read my two Lay Sermons, are no strangers to my opin- 
ions on this head ; and in my treatise on the Church and Chur- 
ches, I shall, if Providence vouchsafe, submit them to the 
public, with their grounds and historic evidences in a more 
systematic form. 

I have, I am aware, in this present work furnished occa- 
sion for a charge of having expressed myself with slight and 
irreverence of celebrated names, especially of the late Dr. 
Paley. O, if I were fond and ambitious of literary honor, of 
public applause, how well content should I be to excite but 
one third of the admiration which, in my inmost being, I feel 
for the head and heart of Paley ! And how gladly would I 
surrender all hope of contemporary praise could I even ap- 
proach to the incomparable grace, propriety, and persuasive 
facility of his writings ! But on this very account I believe 
myself bound in conscience to throw the whole force of my 
intellect in the way of this triumphal car, on which the tute- 
lary genius of modern idolatry is borne, even at the risk of 
being crushed under the wheels ! I have at this moment be- 
fore my eyes the eighteenth of his Posthumous Discourses : 
the amount of which is briefly this, — that all the words and 
passages in this New Testament which express and contain 
the peculiar doctrines of Christianity, the paramount objects 
of the Christian Revelation, all those which speak so strong- 
ly of the value, benefit, and efficacy, of the death of Christ, 
assuredly mean something : but what they mean, nobody, it 
seems, can tell ! But doubtless we shall discover it, and be 
convinced that there is a substantial sense belonging to these 
words — in a future state ! Is there an enigma, or an absur- 
dity, in the Koran or the Vedas, which might not be defended 
on the same pretence ? A similar impression, I confess was 
left on my mind by Dr. Magee's statement or exposition (ad 
normam Grotianam) of the doctrine of Redemption ; and 
deeply did it disappoint the high expectations, sadly did it 



CONCLUSION. 851 

chill the fervid sympathy, which his introductory chapter, 
his manly and masterly disquisition on the sacrificial rites of 
Paganism, had raised in my mind. 

And yet I cannot read the pages of Paley, here referred 
to, aloud, without the liveliest sense, how plausible and popu- 
lar they will sound to the great majority of readers. Thou- 
sands of sober, and in their way pious, Christians will echo 
the words, together with Magee's kindred interpretation of 
the death of Christ, and adopt the doctrine for their make- 
faith ; and why ? It is feeble. And whatever is feeble is 
always plausible : for it favors mental indolence. It is fee- 
ble : and feebleness, in the disguise of confessing and con- 
descending strength, is always popular. It flatters the rea- 
der, by removing the apprehended distance between him and 
the superior author ; and it flatters him still more by enabling 
him to transfer to himself, and to appropriate, this superiori- 
ty ; and thus to make his very weakness the mark and evi- 
dence of his strength. Ay, quoth the rational Christian — or 
with a sighing, self soothing sound between an Ay and an 
Ah ! — I am content to think, with the great Dr. Paley, and 
the learned Archbishop of Dublin — 

Man of sense ! Dr. Paley was a great man, and Dr. Ma- 
gee is a learned and exemplary prelate ; You do not think at 
all ! 

With regard to the convictions avowed and enforced in my 
own Work, I will continue my address to the man of sense in 
the words of an old philosopher : — Tu vero crassis auribus 
et obstinato corde respuis quce forsitan vere perhibeantur. 
Minus hercule calles pi'avissimis opinionibus ea putari 
mendacia, quce vel auditu nova, vel visu rudia, vel certe 
supra captum cogitationis (extemporanece tuce) ardua vi- 
deaniur : quce, si paulo accuratius exploraris, non modo 
(oniperlu evidentia, sed etiamfactufacilia, senties.* 

* Apul. MHam. I FJ 



352 AIi)S TO REFLECTION. 

In compliance with the suggestion of a judicious friend, the 
celebrated conclusion of the fourth book of Paley's Moral 
and Political Philosophy, referred to in p. 304 of this Volume, 
is here transprinted for the convenience of the reader : — 

" Had Jesus Christ delivered no other declaration than the 
following — ' The hour is coming, in the which all that are in 
the grave shall hear his voice, and shall come forth : they 
that have done good, unto the resurrection of life, and they 
that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation ;' — 
he had pronounced a message of inestimable importance, and 
well worthy of that splendid apparatus of prophecy and mir- 
acles with which his mission was introduced, and attested : 
a message in which the wisest of mankind would rejoice to 
find an answer to their doubts, and rest to their inquiries. — 
It is idle to say, that a future state had been discovered al- 
ready : — it had been discoveredas the Copernican system was ; 
— it was one guess among many. He alone discovers, who 
proves ; and no man can prove this point, but the teacher 
who testifies by miracles that his doctrine comes from God." 

Faedianus says of Virgil, — Usque adeo expers invidia ut 
siquid erudite dictum inspiceret alterius. non minus gau- 
deret ac si suum esset. My own heart assures me that this 
is less than the truth ; that Virgil would have read a beauti- 
ful passage in the work of another with a higher and purer 
delight than in a work of his own, because free from the ap- 
prehension of his judgment being warped by self-love, and 
without that repressive modesty akin to shame, which in a 
delicate mind holds in check a man's own secret thoughts 
and feelings, when they respect himself. The cordial admi- 
ration with which I peruse the preceding passage as a master- 
piece of composition, would, could I convey it, serve as a 
measure of the vital importance I attach to the convictions 
which impelled me to animadvert on the same passage as 
doctrine. 



A I'P EN DI V . 



A SYNOPTICAL SUMMARY OF THE SC HEME OF THE ARGUMENT TO 
PROVE THE DIVERSITY IN KINO, OF THE REASON AND THE 
UNDERSTANDING. SEE P. 211. 

The position to be proved is the difference in kind of the 
understanding from the reason. 

The axiom, on which the proof rests, is : subjects, which 
require essentially different general definitions,different in kind 
and not merely in degree. For difference in degree forms 
the ground of specific definitions, but not of generic or gen- 
eral. 

Now reason is considered either in relation to the will and 
moral being, when it is termed the *practical reason = A : 
or relatively to the intellective and sciential faculties, when 
it is termed theoretic or speculative reason = a. In order 
therefore to be compared with the reason, the understanding* 
must in like manner be distinguished into the understanding 
as a principle of action, in which relation I call it the adap- 
tive power, or the faculty of selecting and adapting means 
and medial of proximate ends = B : and the understanding, 



* N. B The practical reason alone is reason in the full and substantive 
sense. It is reason in its own sphere of perfect freedom , as the source of 
ideas, which ideas, in their conversion to th& responsible will become ul- 
timate ends: On the other hand, theoretic reason, as the ground of the uni- 
versal and absolute in all logical conclusion, is rather the light of reason in 
the understanding, and known to be such by its contrasl with the contin 
gency and particularity which characterize all the proper and indigenous 
growths of the understanding. 
45 



354 CONCLUSION. 

as a mode and faculty of thought, when it is called reflection 
= b. Accordingly, I give the general definitions of these 
four : that is, I describe each severally by its essential char- 
acters : and I find, that the definition of A differs toto genere 
from that of B, and the definition of a from that of b. 

Now subjects that require essentially different definitions 
do themselves differ in kind. But understanding, and reason, 
require essentially different definitions. Therefore under- 
standing and. reason differ in kind. 



Erratum. — Page 225, for Aph. IV, read Aph. IX 



INDEX 



Absurd, 17 

Adam, 265 

Advantages of Religion, 99 

Admiration, love of, 194 

Aids, Object of, t>-12, 62, 167 

" order of, 277 

" criticism on, 111 

" character of, 15,17 

u objections to, 51 

Allegory, 284— Note. 

Alcohol, 165 

Amalgamation, Religious, 132 

Anabaptists, 329 

Analogy, 203 

Ancients, study of the writings of, 56 

Annihilation, 27«— Note. 

Aphorism, 80 — Note. 

Atonement, See Redemption. 

Attention, Note 2. — 69 

Bacon, Lord, 50 

Baptism, 300, 317, 333 

Behmen, Jacob, 384, 339 

Belief, ground of, 18, 20 

" what is a necessary part of, 189 
" demands previous confi- 

115. 195 

130 

299 

343 

220— Note. 

43, 46, 68 

70 



dence, 
Bible, object of reading, 
Birth, 
Body, 

Books, popular, 
Brutes and man, 
Breath, the enlivening, 

Calumny, 
Catholics, 
Cause and effect, 
" an omnipresent, 



135 

209— Note. 

33, 246 

107 



Ceremonies, 
Cherubim, 
Charcoal, 
Church, history of, 
its authority, 



Page. 

76 

73 

231— Note 

131 

271 



Christianity, evidence of, 201,348 
" doctrines peculiar to, 77, 197 
138, 304, 329 



Christ, in, 

" his death 
Circumcision, 
Circumstance, 
Convince, 
Conscience, 
Consequence, 
Contempt, 
Contemplation, 
Controvercies, religious, 
Conversion, 
Corruption, 

Death, 

" fear of 
Des Cartes & Berkley, 
Deffinition, value of, 
Depravity, total 
Derangement, 
Detraction, 
Discourse, 
Disputes, 
Doubt, 



169 
275 
329 

24 
123 
145, 147, 303 
131 
134 
192 
132 

82 
255 

290 

275 

344 

11 

71— Note 

246 

134, 135 

220 

132 

113,131 



Education,early influence of, 225 
Election, 102, 171—190 

Enlivening, 032 

Enos, 338 

Enthusiasm, 165, 337 

Error, intellectual effect of, 28, 3J,42 



356 



muEX. 



Pago. 
201 
240 
76 
155 
341 



Evangelical, 
Evil, its origin, 
Examination, self, 
Expediences, 
Eye, 



Faith, 26, 73, 79, 205, 281, 287,303,204 
Fall, 156 

Familists, 159,79 

Fanatic, 347 

Fashion, 127 

Fenelon, 340 

Feelings, 123 

Fidianism, 206 

Future State, 307, 317 

" taught in the Old Testa- 
ment, 119 
Gas, 231— Note. 
Generalize, 252— Note. 
Genius, 218 
Ghost, Holy, his presence how 

known, 105, 221 

God, Idea of, 1S7,262 

" the only satisfying portion 
to the Soul, 141, 146 

Good and bad, difference between, 137 
Gospel, on hearing it, 150 

" its language and purport, 203 
Grace, ffroweth in, 76, 128 

Grief, " 119, 123 

Happiness, desire of the natural 

heart for it, 83— Note. 

" attainable only by improve- 
ment, 139, 147 
Hebrews, Epistle to, 313 
Heresy, 81, 209— Note. 
Hope," 118 
Humility, 193 

Idols, 142 

Imagination, 121 

Imitation, 141 
Immortality, its loss consequent 

on the fall of Adam,27P— Note. 

Imprudence, 144 

Tnconsistencv, 126 

Infidelity, 142 

Infinite on the finite, 120 

Inferiority, confession of, 351 

Instinct," 230 

Instruction, early influence of, 225 
Intrepretation, private, 271 — Note. 



Jonah, book of, 
John, St. his gospel, 
Knowledge, 



244 



Note. 
335 
101, 130 



Puge 

Knowledge, required by Chris- 
tianity, 71, 73 
" purity requisite to its attainment,130 
" if right, not enough in order 

to do right, 147 

Language, 230 — Note. 

" strictures of, 194 

Law, 79, 106, 273 

" and religion, 257 
Laws, preventive forces of mate- 
rial world, 346 
Learned class, 269 
Life, 70, 290 

" spiritual 27, 275, 269 
Literal sense of scripture the safer, 123 

Luke, 31 

Love, 90 

Lovers, general, 132 



Magee, 




351 


Marginal note, 




333 


Man and brute, 




43, 46, 68 


Maniac, 




248 


Marriage, 




91— Note. 


Materialism, 




340 


Metaphor, 




203, 286 


Metaphysics, 


111 


241— Note. 



Mind, differentfeaturesassignedto, 341 
Minds, difference in, 218— Note 

Miracles, 304 

Ministry, the christian, 101 , 133, 1 6'2 
Mirth, 119 

Morality, 77, 86, 199, 267, 268, 293 
" national and religious, 128 

Motives, 105 

Music, 218— Note. 

Mystic, 337 

Mysticism, 337 

Merit, 150 

Nature and free will, 33, 41, 110,237, 
108— Note. 246— Note. 
Obscurity- of Coleridge"s style, 51 , 302 
Obscure to indolent, 220 — Note. 

Omnipresence, 348 

Organ differs from machine, 343 

Origin, 346— Note. 

Pale v. 43, 304 , 252— Not i ■ 

" " Not a moralist, 268, 350 

Paradox, 71 

Passions, 144 

Peace, 117 

Penance, 286 

Personal bein^r, 262,273 

Philosophy, modern, 34, 48, 225, 339 



INDEX. 



357 



Page. 
Philosophy, aud the Gospel, 189, 192 

Pity, 89 

Plato, 236— Note. 

Popery, 210— Note. 

Prayer, Lords, 200 

Preaching, 128 

Pride, 134, 141 

Principle, 100 

Prometheus, 260 

Prudence, 76, 82? 88, 199 

" and virtue, 196 

Psyche, 260 



Radicals of word, 
Railing, 
Rational, 
Reason, 
" practical, 



288 

143 

18, 2-2, 74 

183, 303 

181, 162,234 



Sadduces, 




200 


Saviour, 




235, 23!) 


Scheme, 




267 


Schism, 




81, 382 


Science, 




267 


Scribes and Pharisees, 


200 


Scripture, its language, 


121 


" figure of s 


peech, 


123 


« literal, 




123 


Sectarian, 




336— Note. 


Selfishness, 




164 


Sense, common 




242— Note. 


Sensibility, 




89 


Serpent, 




241— Note 



and understanding, 41, 47, 208 

302,241— Note. 353 

Reconciliation, 127 

Redemption, 272, 278, 286 

Reflection, 11, 65 

" how aided, 11 

Regeneration, 211 

" and baptism, 300, 317, 203 

Religion, 225 

" spiritual independent on 

the understanding, 26, 238 
" natural, 187, 227 

" and philosophy, 21, 26 

" mysteries of, 227,267 

" the spiritual in, 86, 128 

" of parts assigned to differ- 
ent faculties, 87 
" platonic, division of, 36 — Note 
Remorse, 147 
Repentance, 15], 286 
Rights, 147, 252— Note. 
Righteousness imputed, 137, 285, 294 
Rites and ceremonies, 78 
Romans, Epistle to, 213 



Page. 
Slander, [34 

Soul, different faculties assigned 

to parts of religion, ~~, 

Space, 183— Note. 

Speculation, 14 

Spirit, 110, 164, 211, 302- Note 

" Holy, his presence how 

known, 105, 117, 122,161, 166 

Spiritual influences, rational, 105,117 

121, 161, 166 

Subjective and objective, 183 — Note. 

Superstition, !; ' -Note 

Symbol, 243— Note. 

Sin, 245 

" original 140 

" bosom, value of overcoming, 71 

Taylor, Jeremy 240 

Temptation, 257 

" anticipated, 121 

Testament, old and new, 200 

Thinking, 69 

Thought, fore, 68, 137,69— Note. 
Toleration, 134, 209— Note. 

Tongue, 135, 137 

Transcendental and transcendent,389 
Transubstantiation, I mi 

Trinity, ]82 

Truth, 130 

Twilight between vice and virtue, '.Hi 

Understanding, terms of, 217 

Unicity, 206— Note. 

Unions, religious, 132 

Unitarian, 152— Note. 206— Note. 
Unity, 116, 206— Note. 

Unkindness, 219 — Note. 

Virtue and vice, twilight be- 
tween, ;»() 
Will, free, 33, 105, 122, 153, 160, 
169,233,26!, 273, 298 108- 
Note. 246— Note. 255— Note. 
Words, their force when used by 

Coleridge, ' 53 

" as a science, 10, 62 

" definite use of, 238 

" radicals of, 288 

" to aid reflection, ) 1 

Words, consequence of misuse, 42 

" dispute about, 145 

Works, [50 

Wold, its effect on the Christian 

life, 76 

" proofs of its unsatisfj ing 

nature, L20, 141, I 17 

Writers, early study of, r>7 






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